Ep.16: Happy Blasphemy Day!

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.16: Happy Blasphemy Day!

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded, curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. Today, well, actually today that we're recording this is Blasphemy Day, September 30th. And yeah, so we are going to talk about and celebrate blasphemy.

Yay! God damn it. Jesus Christ, what are these people doing?

Yes. So, you know, I don't even think a lot of people realize this is an actual holiday.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, and those that do may not even know about the origins, but to just kick us off like I love to do, blasphemy is important because the right to freedom of religion and belief doesn't include the right to have a religion or a belief that's free from criticism or ridicule. That was part of the special report on freedom of religion or belief. So there's an entire organization, many organizations that monitor blasphemy and laws that affect religious freedom throughout the world.

And the fact is that they stand for the right for all religions to be criticized and to be protected. So there's equal measure.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Well, I mean, we can kind of take it back to its inception, like, you know, the first celebration of blasphemy day was fascinating. 2009 was actually like the first celebration of it.

But, you know, it came to be by events before that. International blasphemy day. Yeah.

And it was linked to the September 30th, the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the satirical satirical drawings of Muhammad.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, the Danish newspaper, I'm going to ruin the name. So I apologize to the Danish people who may or may not be listening. Jolanda's Poston.

They had put a cart 12 editorial cartoons of Muhammad, who is the founder of Islam. And people lost their shit. They did the prominent Danish Muslim groups begin to essentially freak out about it.

The they wanted to censor the entire thing. And, you know, they were just really irate over the fact that these individuals put these cartoons out there because depictions period are not allowed. And again, this is really important for all of you out there.

Your religious beliefs are your problem. If as a Muslim, you don't want to see these things, then don't do these things and avoid it. But understand people of other faiths do have a right to have thoughts, feelings and ideas about your religion.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, I can draw a stick figure and put the name Muhammad above it, and it doesn't mean anything or do anything to me.

[Lilin Lavin]
I respect like their beliefs, they have a right to them and to be respected and to have the same freedoms as anyone else. And just as I have the right to feel what I feel about Christians, religions, all sorts of religions out there.

[Tommy Lavin]
So yeah, I mean, so this sort of, you know, that event, which, you know, actually, there was death.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, over 100 people were killed.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, there's like over 100 people died because of a fucking cartoon. Okay, a few cartoons, but still, I mean, think about the stupidity of that, you know, hundreds of people died because of a cartoon. I mean, just let that sink in a little bit.

[Lilin Lavin]
So the real importance of International Blasphemy Day is the right to free speech, and the right to free thought and the ability to express ourselves, even if it's things that may be offensive to others. And that's so important to satanists, especially satanists who are aligned with organizations like the satanic temple, because among the tenants of the satanic temple is the right to offend.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep. And I think that went perfect. And I'm probably going to butcher this last name here.

You know, one of the founders, Justin Trottier, I believe, from Toronto, he was coordinator of Blasphemous Day. His quote, to me, just screamed tenant four, you know, we're not seeking to offend. But if in the course of dialogue and debate, people become offended, that's not an issue for us.

There is no human right not to be offended. Exactly. Beautifully said.

So, you know, I know some people kind of go a little bit out their way on Blasphemous Day to be blasphemous. Well, I mean, it is Blasphemy Day, so. Yeah, you know, and so I kind of look at it as I'm just me every day.

And so every day of my existence is blasphemous in some way, shape or form.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's a good day to discuss free speech and the importance of our First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion, which falls under that same thing, freedom of and freedom from religion, and the insidious nature of current environmental trends within many communities to take away those freedoms or to manipulate those freedoms biasly towards their specific beliefs or ideologies.

[Tommy Lavin]
Texas, excuse me. Oh, you got that cold. Something.

Yeah. I had that dominionist cult there going around. Oh, yeah, I heard about that.

So, you know, but I was surprised when I looked at the list of countries that one, I was surprised about the amount of countries that still have some sort of blasphemous laws on the book. And then the list of some of them, I mean, some of them, you know, were just duh, of course, there's like Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, you know, things like that. Everybody can, you know, with two brain cells bouncing around knows that.

But, you know, when you look at things like Germany, or Canada was even on there. Now, I don't know if Canada, I've seen some conflicting articles, as I started to look through the list and kind of dig down. And it looks like planet can't.

I bet that Canada has gotten rid of their blasphemy law. But then shockingly, on the other side, Denmark and Sweden were adding anti blasphemy laws. I was like, Whoa, what the fuck?

[Lilin Lavin]
I'm not as versed in some of the international issues as I would like to be to speak about it. But I do know that a lot of those countries have had an influx of other religious beliefs, specifically of the Muslim faith, where they've added things because there have been extreme pushes in some regards. Now, unfortunately, when you try to overcorrect like that, it tends to create dangerous situations for people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I was even reading an article. And it was written by a Muslim in the one of those countries, I think he was in Denmark. And he was saying how he did not see this as a good thing.

Because, you know, and he started quoting him in the Quran, where you're supposed to use patience when it comes to blasphemy, not like imprison people or kill people or find them or anything like that. It was only I think, somewhere in the, you know, medieval centuries where all religions sort of went fucking ape shit, ape shit, nuts and burning people and killing people and shit like that. But, you know, in his take was, if somebody is blasphemous towards a certain religion, and you punish them for that, are they likely or they more likely to convert and be more friendly towards that religion?

Or are they more likely to hate it even more? And he was like, it's really the latter. So you're not actually helping anything by putting these laws into place.

And I actually agree with him on that.

[Lilin Lavin]
I agree with that. And I think when you look at the difference between people who have a faith and a belief, and people who are extreme in their faith and belief, and use it more as a battering ram than, you know, a carrot, they tend to overdo it in those ways. And when you listen to people like that, who are Muslim and are out there explaining these things, and how it in their interpretation should be really approached, you know, you really clearly see the difference.

It happens a lot with Christianity. So you know, and then you look at countries like Pakistan, where they have a very large Muslim community as well. 17 people are actually put to death over blasphemy.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah, no, I know, there's, there's countries where people are killed for, you know, if I went and visited some of these countries, and I dress the way that I dress every single day here, I would be killed, I'd be executed. And, again, that's just beyond fucked up. You know, my, my fear is, you know, will, will America, you know, what's going to happen in America, and then that's a whole nother subject, we, you know, I think anybody who has a pulse and, you know, stays connected to the news or social media in any sort of way knows all the stuff going on here and the direction that some people are trying to bring America, but I would almost say like, you know, okay, well, if these other religions are going to whine and cry and bitch about blasphemy, well, technically, does that mean that as Satanists, like, you know, every Sunday, we're being, you know, blasphemized in church, because they're always saying Satan, this Satan, that Satan, this blah, blah, blah, you know, it's the same sort of shit. We're not out there whining and crying and bitching and moaning about it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Maybe we should. But, but, no, because, again, that's one of those censorship things, right? People have, again, we have the tenant that says offense is something that is, you can do that.

That's something that, again, I'm not going to absolutism the interpretation, right? Because we've all talked about it. And that's probably another discussion where some people want to rigidly define the tenants.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yes.

[Lilin Lavin]
And what they do and do not mean. And I do have an issue with that. It's not to say that there are things that I will not support being mentioned and brought out by the tenants.

But for the most part, you know, Satanism is a very specific to yourself, individualistic belief system. And so those interpretations being so varied reflects the very different points of view of so many of our so many of the people in our community.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And just for people that don't know me, I was being a sarcastic asshole when I said that Satanists should whine and cry and bitch and moan about it, because we really don't give a shit. You know, that's that's the whole point of kind of being a Satanist is, well, I don't really care what some other religious person thinks about me or my religion, as long as they're not trying to take rights away from me.

That's when I get sort of pissed off and I'm going to say or do something about it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, yeah. And the reason why free speech is so important, aside from the religious aspect, because it doesn't stop there. When you look at things that happened, there was recently, and it was the first case I think ever, a man in Saudi Arabia received the death penalty for posting online on Twitter of all things.

And it was anti-government conversation. And this individual was sentenced to death for speaking out against their government.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Again, I mean, there's, and, you know, is that blasphemy? Or is that, does that fall under anti-government?

You know, I don't know exactly what he posted.

[Lilin Lavin]
So it really, it really depends on your point of view, right? Because blasphemy, yes, is against religion or faith, but it's also against what other people hold ideologically as sacred or important.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, there was another quote from, um, you know, the, the initial celebration of blasphemy day by the, um, the president and CEO. Um, and again, I, if I, I think I'll get this name right, Ronald A. Lindsay or Lindsay, um, stated that, you know, we think religious beliefs should be subject to examination and criticism just as political beliefs are, but we have a taboo on religion.

Again, I agree with him wholeheartedly. You know, we should be able to discuss these things. We should be able to disagree on them just as we do in politics.

But for some reason, you know, if you disagree with religion in certain countries, you can get anywhere from a fine to jail time to death.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And that means to be able to criticize your own beliefs as well. I know recently we did a book one of the other, um, congregants from our, our particular congregation, Jenny, we got into a conversation about the knee jerk reaction.

We sometimes have to over-correct on our own religious beliefs and the criticism that we can sometimes push back on when we hear it, but instead of listening. And so it's important that, you know, as Satanists, we also don't fall into that absolutist mindset where you can't be critical of your beliefs. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I'm completely open to being critical of my beliefs. If somebody can show me something or give some sort of proof or, you know, anything like that. I'm totally open in my, my beliefs, even as a Satanist have evolved over the decades, you know, as what I thought was acceptable to what I now don't think is acceptable, um, has changed.

And, and I firmly believe that's the way religion should work. You should always be growing. You should be, you know, trying to better yourself in whatever it is that you're doing, whatever it is that you're involved in.

Um, but you definitely shouldn't be looking for the execution of people who disagree with you or have a different faith.

[Lilin Lavin]
Even like I said, in your own faith to be able to criticize or to think about critical feedback and to understand where it's coming from and how to maybe even recognize where there are failings, where there are things that can be explained or where you can grow in certain areas. Um, but it's important, you know, blasphemy laws are, are kind of a bellwether, right? The way people see blasphemy in a community can really tell you a lot about the health of a community and the way that they treat people.

When you look at things like, um, in May, 2022, a mob in Nigeria killed a college student after a WhatsApp message she sent, uh, was deemed blasphemous. So this individual was, was killed because of a WhatsApp message. You know, when you look at things like, um, 2023, just, just past January, a college, um, college of a Christian woman working with Pakistan civil aviation authority threatened to accuse her of blasphemy following a workplace dispute.

I mean, these kinds of things are kind of bizarre. Uh, June, 2022, Stephen Masai was released from prison in Pakistan following his arrest and detention in 2019 for blasphemy. You know, there's always different people released, people are convicted, you know, they went to jail for, for having thoughts, for having feelings about something other people were uncomfortable about.

And that's where, you know, you have to be careful because the laws encourage individuals to essentially seek retaliation and retribution against those that they deem to have offended them and their beliefs. And you have to think about the implications of that. If it were to become commonplace, I mean, even a very simple statement of, you know, you'd bang your toe and you shout, God damn it.

Could you be brought up on charges?

[Tommy Lavin]
Right. Right. I mean, that's why I do get so somewhat worked up on what's happening in America or the United States.

Um, because America actually is, you know, much larger than just the United States, but the United States, the country of the United States and the direction that it's going or people are trying to push it towards theocracy. And I kind of always go back and say, you know, I know you believe somewhere that this will be like paradise or something, but go look at these other countries and then ask yourself, is that really the way you want the United States to be run? Right.

You know, do we want religious police? Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Not really. I mean, and, and just to spread it out so that it doesn't seem like it's not something common in many different beliefs. In, in, uh, 2023 May, this past May, uh, Sri Lankan authorities actually ended up arresting a standup comedian.

And I'm probably going to screw this one up. Gianni Natasha Erdosoria. Um, they were doing a comedy show and apparently they defamed Buddhism in the show while they were, you know, joking around about different things.

And they were, they were arrested for their comedy show.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Imagine, I think about the United States, just the kind of jokes and comedy shows that we have just normal conversational stuff that we do ingest routinely and that kind of environment that that would create.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And technically there's still States in the United States that have in theory. Yeah.

They still technically have some blasphemy laws on the books. Yeah. They're not really, um, you know, they're not really used or anything like that.

But if you think about it, look what happened with Dobbs. Texas and a whole bunch of States had laws quote on the books that couldn't be enforced until, until Dobbs went in. And then the second that went in, those laws went into effect.

And so to even have them on the books is dangerous because if some, you know, if something happens, those are already there, they shouldn't even be on the books. I don't understand. It's like we're in 2023 is no, is there no politician in any of these States?

That's brave enough to say, Hey, this is kind of stupid to still have this stuff on our books. Why don't we just remove this?

[Lilin Lavin]
I think we could do an overhaul on a lot of different laws, to be honest with you. There's some very ridiculous things, especially as it pertains to your freedom of thought, your freedom of speech, things that are obviously overridden by our first amendment, right. But we've seen where in other instances, you know, people's lives have been affected by these very seemingly mundane state laws that are in contradiction with the greater federal laws, but can be upheld because of the way that we wanted States to remain in their own right sovereign and in somewhat independent with their ability to dictate laws for their own communities.

I just feel that at this point in time, especially as it pertains to people's private, consensual, appropriate sexual behavior, or the things that they say, you know, if you're not threatening people's lives, if you're not planning harm, and outwardly just admitting those things, you have a right to feel how you feel.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I need to find it here. Because I was I was kind of putting this guy earlier, but he said something in here, which I thought was really kind of ironic, when we look at what is going on in the United States now with with books and banning books and stuff like that. And, you know, having these big bonfire book parties, again, the free farming parties.

Now, of course, they were talking about the Quran and other religious books, but you know, he in generally sort of talking about books in general, he says, you know, if anybody had a real argument against that scripture, or any book, he could put it into words, burning books, instead of criticizing them is what barbarians do. So I mean, that statement right there, again, from, you know, a very devout Muslim that was just on the other side of this, this, these laws that were going into effect in Sweden and Denmark, you know, but I look at that, and that same statement can apply here in the United States with what is happening with books, why are we burning books? Why are we banning books?

You know, instead, have a conversation about it more or put out your own book, you know, that contradicts it or something like that. But it's been so, so politicized. And, you know, and we're in this environment now, that's sort of like this tinderbox that everybody wants to outdo the other per the other person, you know, and I don't know, well, I mean, you know, you criticize, we criticize certain aspects of Christianity that are used to support horrific things.

[Lilin Lavin]
And much like that, most religious books, text have aspects of them that could be interpreted that way. And that's the tricky thing about religions, right? Because interpretation, yes, it leaves things so open.

So the interesting thing, and I'm not an expert in the Quran, I've read the Quran, you know, to the best of my ability, but there are aspects of it, which which do not they call for people not to themselves, punish blasphemers that that should be left up to to Allah to do the ultimate punishment for those who make those choices. And I think it's important that if those are your beliefs, that you, you know, critically understand that if there is some kind of ultimate judgment, if these things truly are what you what you hold of a value, then maybe it's important to understand that your part is not to take take that judgment into your own hands.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, yeah, I mean, Christianity says the same thing. They're not supposed to be judging, you know, that's, that's supposedly supposed to be quote, unquote, God's thing. And you're not supposed to do that.

But yet, every single day, every single second of every single day, you go on social media or something like that. And there's a bunch of Christians criticizing other people, you go to Sunday morning church, and they're criticizing and judging other people. And you know, it's like, okay, where did this get lost in translation?

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, it seems pretty, pretty straightforward to me, right, right, kind of here in your own book, you know, and the onus is on all of us to ensure that we're living up to the best of what we truly hold a value to like, as a Satanist, I've often said, it's not my job to tell you how to live your beliefs. If you are a Satanist, and you're doing all the things, you know, that you feel embody your belief system, and always like my biggest thing, if you're not harming others, if you're following the laws of consent, if you're, you know, living in a way that doesn't cause any issue to other people physically, you know, danger, then it's not my business. It's not my business to tell you how to live.

And that's my biggest issue with certain other belief systems, many other belief systems is some of the people take it to such an extreme that they want to impose their interpretation of their, their solid foundation of life's lessons onto everyone's life. And you can't do that.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And again, like I said, you know, as a as a Satanist, I am kind of a walking blasphemy for against Christianity and many other religions. But, you know, we even have the Black Mass, which I mean, that is like the total mockery and it's its whole purpose is for blasphemy.

And I remember when we did our Black Mass, there was, you know, I mean, they had to have the police in the median so that we wouldn't have angry Christians coming in trying to harm us or the spectators, because it was a public ritual, right? Semi public, it was like private, people were able to invitation invitation, you know, and we, we did a Black Mass. And it was, you know, a really fun ritual, because the whole point of it is blasphemy, but the lies that came out of it was crazy.

I mean, so we like, supposedly, we drove to Lubbock and, and broke into a church and took their Jesus, their Jesus wafers. Their Jesus. Yeah, their Jesus.

You know, it was like, where the hell do y'all come up with this?

[Lilin Lavin]
Or we were sneaking people into get communion to to steal the host in our mouths, like they're checking people open your mouth. Did you eat it?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was just bizarre. So yeah, there's a few very devout Catholic militant groups in our area. And when they got wind that we were doing this Black Mass ritual, it went out like all over there was emergency bulletin reports.

Oh my gosh, they're they're having a Black Mass. They're going to do it three in the morning. That's when these things are typically done in line with what the fuck kind of what?

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, if you would have come in three in the morning, nobody would have been there.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, no, but it was it was wild. So they had rows of people praying they had giant crucifixes and crosses. They had banners.

They killed the grass.

[Tommy Lavin]
They did kill the grass. They put salt down on the grass, which if you know anything, you put a bunch of salt on grass, it kills the grass. So, you know, word to Catholics.

[Lilin Lavin]
I like salt. Salt is tasty. I enjoy eating and using salt.

[Tommy Lavin]
Salt doesn't do a damn thing to me other than flavor my food. So and I and yeah, I guess I would be a saltaholic. So, you know, the more salt, the better.

Just throw it at me. I'll open my mouth and I can catch all the salt. You know, yeah, that's just for y'all to know.

Salt doesn't do anything. Yeah, salt salt does doesn't there there is there's no spiritual warfare going on. I'll walk right across your little salt boundary and nothing about my personality or me or anything like that's going to change.

As a matter of fact, I take salt baths sometimes to relax.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's quite lovely. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Oh, the nice salt bath. Our demons are in the background screaming. You know, I don't know where they come up with this shit.

It's like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. And supposedly we were I don't know, we were going to sacrifice a baby.

I mean, they go all out on this sort of stuff. I actually want to do I'm I so want to do another black mass. We we need to do another black mass.

We totally have to do another black mass.

[Lilin Lavin]
Some that it takes planning. Yeah, I know it takes planning and we have to get security. Yeah.

Thanks. Thanks again. Blasphemy, right?

The you know, individuals cannot tolerate anything that is contradictory to their deeply held beliefs while stomping all over our deeply held beliefs.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. But yeah, just to set the record straight, nobody drove from Houston all the way up to Lubbock. If you know Texas, that's like a 12 hour drive there and a 12 hour drive back in order to steal Jesus from a church.

And why would we go to Houston when there's a church on every single corner in Houston? So just you can buy them off of Amazon. Exactly.

[Lilin Lavin]
I was about to say we don't we don't steal consecrated wafers from churches or like we we value and we want you to have your beliefs. We're not there trying to upset your ritualistic practices. And so we're not over there stealing your Jesus.

We order them and they're not consecrated because we don't care whether or not they're consecrated. It's symbolic just like the fact that you had some priests wave their hands. We're ministers too.

So we can wave our hands over the Jesus and on consecrate them. Do they become Satanists? Satanists?

No, because we don't we don't eat ourselves in deific satisfaction. I don't know. I don't know.

[Tommy Lavin]
I heard a rumor if you like surgically remove a couple ribs, you can you can do some stuff with yourself. Way, way, way, way. Okay.

Sorry. I went a little bit off there. Yeah, but but it is blasphemy day.

So you know, hey, you know, I'm gonna go all fucking out on it. So yeah, definitely need to do another black mass. Totally need to do another black mass.

[Lilin Lavin]
So I encourage everyone, if you love free speech, if you enjoy the right to free thought, if you love the fact that there are books out there that even piss you off, and ones that you love that piss other people off, this is when you have to stand up and say, I'm drawing the line that free speech is for everyone. And whether or not I'm pissed off at your beliefs, or you're pissed off at mine doesn't matter. We each have the right to our own personal belief system, as long as we're not infringing on one another's rights in the process.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. And for all you social media, Elon Musk freaks, and all of that, that go down the free speech sort of free speech. Yeah.

So buying a social media platform, so you can remove one set of one set of, you know, things that people are saying and put more weight on the algorithm to other ones. And then argue free speech on it, or isn't really or also free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever the hell you want, and have no consequences, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
And not everything is legally actionable, just because someone says certain upsetting, offensive things doesn't mean that you can do anything about it. But it does mean that you could lose your job. It does mean that it could affect your relationships.

It absolutely means that people could, you know, decide not to associate with you anymore. There are consequences for the stupid things many people feel compelled to say.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, if you go around and, you know, make certain threats or stuff like that, there, there definitely could be consequences. And even if there's not legal consequences, like you said, you know, if you do something that is pretty outlandish, or let's say you just take, you know, really bigoted sort of stances publicly, and yet you're also, you know, somewhat of a public face of a company, you're probably going to get fired.

And that's not taking away your free speech, you were able to say that without being put in jail or killed or anything like that, you got fired because you broke your contract or some, you know, sort of moral clause that the company has or whatever.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. So, so I do definitely think if you threaten people's lives, if you deny people the right to live or exist, if you decide to call them out in a nasty, bigoted, racist manner, then there should be consequences, you should have to live with the weight of your words. And I will fully defend that.

Do I think those people should necessarily end up in jail? No, unless it graduates to calling for people to be harmed. Yes.

Then I do think people should be held accountable for that. Because certain individuals who I will not name have a very loud platform and continually say things that put people's lives at risk. And it's not just one person.

But there are definitely prominent figures out there who repeatedly take this right and abuse it to the fullest extent. And people have been harmed because of it. And those individuals, I think there should be some type of punishment or repercussion that is out there.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, we're, we have these countries focusing, you know, their, their laws and shit on, oh, my gosh, you drew a picture of something or you burned a book. Oh, no, you're gonna get, you know, in all this trouble, or be killed or something like that. But yet, you can make violent threats towards other people.

And that's just totally okay.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, anti Semitism has always been an issue. Historically, there's been problems that are centered around, like being anti Semitic. And yet, I cannot recall personally, in all my years, the need to put out things like commercials to bring awareness to the fact that there's such a level of anti Semitism now, that it's just at impossible levels for people, there are real dangers happening routinely.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, it's definitely escalated. And that's what I mean, when I say the environment in the United States concerns me in the way that it's moving, because we have these religious radicals that have infiltrated all sorts of government positions. And they're, they're either trying to put in laws, or they are successfully slowly putting in laws.

Where will it stop? When will be enough for the American people? I don't know.

And that's the part that concerns me. Because 20 years ago, I would have never thought half of this shit would have made it as far as it did. But somehow, someway, we've, you know, we have a large portion of our, our society here that has gone like, wackadoodle, fucking crazy conspiracy theory shit, you know, all sorts of stuff.

And it all sort of weaves and ties together with religion.

[Lilin Lavin]
And, you know, I don't know.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
So that's, that's just the important thing. So on this blasphemy day, we felt it was important to highlight what brought blasphemy day into existence, and why it's so important to talk about and the freedoms that are very much at risk, not only for us as Satanists, or for us as atheists, or for just people who are religious, but don't feel that it's right to tell others how to feel, think or live. These things are very much at risk for all of us.

I mean, do I as a parent think that there should be certain things put in place to protect people from abusive behaviors and abusive language? Sure. But I also don't think that we should be banning social media platforms.

I think we have a job as parents, for those of us who are parents to teach our kids to be responsible for their actions, even virtually. And, you know, that doesn't mean taking away access to these things.

[Tommy Lavin]
It means enforcing behavioral, it means, you know, educating your child, you know, if you put your children in a bubble, and you don't expose them to anything, you know, eventually, they're going to leave. And then they're going to be exposed to the entire world and all the shenanigans in the world. And they're going to be like, holy shit.

And sometimes these kids go batshit fucking crazy. Yeah. And do all of this sort of stuff, because they were placed in this little bubble.

[Lilin Lavin]
And, or if you do them to service of only allowing them to speak and live in a certain way, I think then again, you run the risk of them becoming overly radicalized to these ideas. And it could go totally the wrong way when it comes to too much free speech, and not teaching them about responsible speaking and responsible behavior when it comes to respecting other individuals. You know, our kids have never been told they cannot curse, never been told they can't listen to explicit music.

The expectation is always that you understand your environment, your surroundings, and you consider the way that your words affect you and others in your environment.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And honestly, most of our kids, for the most part, probably curse less than other kids that have, you know, these strict rules. You know, so yeah, but that's kind of a little off subject.

[Lilin Lavin]
When you when you teach your kids the importance of being able to use free speech and words, and the power of words and responsibility with your words, I think that's right in line with the fact that blasphemy is actually helpful for your environment, is helpful for your community. The ability to have discourse is healthy. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I love it because, you know, when I'm online, and I'm often talking against, you know, a lot of this Christian nationalist movement that's happening in America right now, you know, I'll have almost every single time, some Christian will come back and say, now do Islam. And my answer is always the same. Sure, when they start to try and put in laws that take away rights, damn right, I will.

But they're trying to make it sound like, you know, we are afraid of speaking out against Islam. And it's like, no, they're not taking our rights away. Right now, they're not trying to take our rights away.

If they get to that point, I sure as fuck will be the one drawing pictures and speaking out against Islam.

[Lilin Lavin]
And in truth, I mean, there was some instances where I don't know, many of you that listen, probably are aware of like Satan con and those kind of things that happened. I know Shalise was very prominently displayed ripping up a Bible in the opening ceremony. And some of my least favorite individuals in existence decided to latch on to that for some reason.

Andrew Taint, as many of you know, I like to call him, decided to take that and run with it and say, well, I'd like to see you do that with the Quran, you know. And the fact of the matter is, should extremists decide as Muslims that they want to enforce their religious beliefs here, as radical Christians do, because we're not doing this in a way to intentionally offend the average person who happens to hold a belief that's attached to these items. It's the radical individuals that are out there harming all of us, including people who share their faith, because they're turning their faith into a weapon.

And when you weaponize things like that, you take that and you turn it into something vile, and you just pollute it. And it's what we try to combat by saying, you know, this book is just a book. You know, your words are just hateful rhetoric that you're hiding behind a religious mask.

And, you know, to combat it, we'll often do things that are quite loud in response. Because sometimes, when you're loud, it brings the attention that people need to say, you know, why are they doing this? What is the impetus behind them getting out there and ripping up a Bible?

Or, you know, maybe eating a Bible? But, you know, when you go out there and you do things that people find shocking, I think it's interesting, because people then want to know why.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. Why were we doing the hokey pokey out front when they were protesting our black mass? Well, because it was fucking fun.

And they didn't expect us to do the hokey pokey.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right, because we're not out there to just be horrible. We believe life is to be lived. You know, I truly think this is my one and only experience at existence, right?

So if I can't turn as much of it into something worth laughing about as possible, then I'm doing something wrong. Not to say I don't have shitty days like everybody else. But I try to find things, even about myself, to laugh at.

And blasphemy is just the right to have these free thoughts, these free ideas, to have these stupid conversations about nothing burgers, because it's something that, you know, happens to be on the topic for the day. And if you take away that ability for us to have open conversations and discourse, it will push us backwards into the and create such an awful situation that I what will be the point?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I just have to go back to Andrew Tate is such a piece of shit. Him and his brother, Tristan Tate. Taint.

Yeah, Andrew and Tristan Taint. And all their little incel army.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, it's so disgusting to me that they lobbed on to the Muslim belief.

[Tommy Lavin]
And so many people, so many Muslims, like, lined up behind them, they're, they're like, cheese or whatnot. It's like, what the hell? Where does this?

[Lilin Lavin]
These people are sex trafficking, abusive, dickbags. They are not people to be reviled. And like, don't emulate these people.

They're horrible people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I'm just, I get a little confused when I see shit like that.

[Lilin Lavin]
I'm like, it's not just dumbasses, like the taints. It's you know, so many people look at some of the here we are facing a potential government shutdown. You know, this is very off the topic of blasphemy.

But in a way, you know, these idiots, I'll just be honest, I don't care which side of the aisle they're on. If you're over here holding hostage the very important financial means by which Medicare, Medicaid, tons of different important structural infrastructure things that we need as everyday human beings is going to be ripped away, not affecting the dickbags that are sitting there causing these problems. No, there's a problem.

And this is the same kind of thing. When you take away the right to have a real discourse, you run into this kind of crap. And you let these people take charge.

And this is what you get.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, again, you know, you look at most theocracies, the people leaving the theocracies, the people like trying to run away from the theocracy are generally of the same faith of the theocracy, you know, and you have to ask yourself why? If if a theocracy is such a great thing, if you know, not allowing blasphemy, if putting people to death and torturing people and all that sort of stuff, because they said something against your belief, and you put all these religious laws into place, if it's such a wonderful paradise, why are the people of the same faith leaving?

You know, think about that, answer that question yourself. I'm not going to answer it for you. I think it's a pretty simple answer.

You know, so yeah, I love blasphemy in the sense that, again, I am a walking billboard of blasphemy when it comes against organized religion. And nobody says shit to me.

[Lilin Lavin]
That's because you're scary. It's not. Sometimes I get conflicted, because you know, Satanists do very much have to deal with a lot of crap in public, things do happen to people, there are there are violent outbursts.

But for the most part, when I go out in public as well, I'm not a very big individual, I could see why you might be a little intimidating. But I, you know, all of five, four, very, you know, I'm not, I don't think someone that you would think of as overly aggressive looking, but I'll go out wearing very satanic or very like vulgar things. Rarely, rarely ever have anyone do anything.

The worst I've had ever happen is someone ran into me with a shopping cart and tried to pretend it was an accident.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, that definitely was not an accident.

[Lilin Lavin]
I was like, I really missed an opportunity to fling myself on the ground and wail loudly. And I will not make that mistake again. Yeah, next time.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's gonna be a million dollars. It's not about lawsuits.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was more of the shock value. You know, I just wanted to put them on the spot. Like, really?

Hell no, we're milking them. No. But that's just it.

Again, blasphemy, right? I'm there in something someone found offensive. And so their reaction was, I'm going to run into you with a grocery cart.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, yeah, we live in a, you know, again, we live in a very conservative area. And hey, you know, different topic, but, you know, some Christians would still consider it, you know, a bit of blasphemy. Our LGBTQIA flag that we put up and talked about on our first episode, still up.

Not a single complaint letter. I was so expecting complaint letters on there. Just because of the neighborhood.

And I think we're like, our daughter, when she came to visit our eldest daughter, she was like, this is the only flag in this entire neighborhood of this.

[Lilin Lavin]
To be fair, we haven't gone through the entire neighborhood. I have yet to see one like it. But that's so sad.

But it was nice because other people were like, wow, that's so cool. Thanks for putting that up. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Every once in a while, you know, it surprises me, you know, I will be walking through the grocery store and every once in a while somebody will throw me a Hail Satan. Yeah.

I'm like, oh, cool. Yeah. Hail Satan.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. It was funny. We were in like the meat aisle or some crap and we're walking around and suddenly someone just shouts, Hail Satan.

And I was like, holy, what the? Okay. Did that just happen?

What the hell's going on there?

[Tommy Lavin]
All right.

[Lilin Lavin]
But no, I mean, again, it's not what everyone expects. And there are people that support your right to have your own beliefs. And that's why blasphemy is so damn important.

Because it's it's okay to be different. It's okay to hold different values and beliefs. As long as your values and beliefs don't ask for harm of others.

Don't violate other people's privacy and space and rights. You know, and that's just it. If it's not affecting you, leave people the fuck alone.

I mean, here we are, you know, we talked about a couple episodes ago, there's people that are trying to block people's travel from one state to another because they might be going to get a fucking abortion.

[Tommy Lavin]
Oh, did you see what Greg Abbott said? Okay, we're gonna go off on a little Greg asked, but so he was talking about the wall that they're building in Texas between Texas and Mexico. And he said, it's on video somewhere.

I saw it yesterday. He was like, and we need to continue that wall and build it between Texas and New Mexico.

[Lilin Lavin]
Okay, good. No, let's just build the whole frickin, you know, what is like the whole state inside of a big frickin crappy wall. And you know, everybody can just deal with that.

I mean, come on, folks, wake up. This is exactly what we're talking about. If you can't even accept the fact that people have the right to choose whatever healthcare options they feel are right for their body and lives.

And again, I get it. There's a big debate over whether again, blasphemy, right? Whether or not God gave you this life or blah, blah, blah, fucking blah.

If I don't want to just date a pregnancy, if I don't want to go through nine months of agony, if I don't want to put myself in a position that I can't afford or risk my other children or risk my life. It's my choice as a woman, as a reproductive individual who might not be a woman, anyone that has the ability to get pregnant has the right to decide whether or not they want to be pregnant. And I'm sorry, I don't have to stop having sex to make you feel better about your sad life.

I don't have to restrict myself, even if I'm being responsible. Sometimes you still end up pregnant. And I mean, I got pregnant twice on birth control.

The fact of the matter is you can only do so much. And it's just ridiculous. I don't care what you eat.

I don't care what you wear. I don't care how you have sex. If you have sex, leave me the hell alone.

And I will leave you the hell alone.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep. So yeah, I mean, as we're starting to now talk about putting up walls between states, yeah, again, you know, constitutional right to free travel. I don't know what these people are thinking.

I guess Texas is this Texas is going to kind of become like the Berlin the Berlin wall.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, I would encourage anyone that hasn't ever looked at Texas's GOP plat to understand their platform. They put one out like every session. It's horrible.

It's horrible. It wants to take away women's rights, women's property rights, children's rights. I mean, we live in a state where kids are still being paddled with the condoning word of the Bible to an extent that I mean, corporal punishment is such a problem here.

And again, blasphemy, right? These people are using the damn Bible to say they have the right to hit children in a way to educate them.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I don't know.

[Lilin Lavin]
That doesn't piss people off when it comes to blasphemous crap. I mean, I don't know what will the there is no right for you to put your hands on somebody else because you think it's something that your God will condone.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So yeah, but the Texas GOP is run by dominionists. So I mean, that's just part of what you have to understand when you look at the stupid shit that Texas tries to put into place.

But so yeah, gladly, gladly walk around gladly. I'm very happy to be a billboard for blasphemy. Celebrate blasphemy.

[Lilin Lavin]
Celebrate yourself. See who you are. Be proud of who you are.

And don't let other people's crappy opinions of what you should or shouldn't be dictate how you live your life. You'll waste so much of your of your life. If you let yourself fall into that, if people are going to accept you or not, is out of your hands.

You just be who you are. I would rather be hated by like hundreds of people. And like my five via those five people like me for exactly who I am.

And that's not a waste of my time. And it's not a waste of yours. Yep.

Yep.

[Tommy Lavin]
So I think with that note, we can we can say happy blasphemy day. Hail Satan. Hail Satan.

And enjoy.