So it turns out my life philosophy is Satanism

I was raised Catholic, but I started losing my religion at the end of my childhood. It was a long process. My personality was always of the Left-Hand Path though. I have always been a nonconformist, staunch individualist, and never afraid to be the voice of opposition. I was told at a very young age I should be a lawyer because I argue so much.

I first looked into Satanism as a young adult, late teens to early 20’s. I always knew about it though, as I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. I just didn’t really like any variation I saw. I was kind of an agnostic deist at the time, so theistic Satanism did not interest me at all. Certain things had appeal with the Church of Satan, mainly due to my somewhat conservative libertarian perspective at the time (luckily I grew out of that phase). Even with that point of view, I still couldn’t get into CoS. I’ll leave it at that as I don’t want to get into a multi-page critique of CoS, LaVey, Rand, Objectivism, etc.

I’ve been an atheist for just about a decade and half now. It’s only been about half that amount of time that my worldview and philosophy really solidified. I knew things like liberal, Secular Humanist, skeptic, rationalist, feminist, and others definitely fit. However, things changed when I discovered The Satanic Temple.

There was an intriguing argument there that proved that religion didn’t have to involve the supernatural. I was also shocked because what was written was exactly what I thought. It was as if someone wrote it just for me. Obviously it’s just a coincidence as I did not yet know the author. But it surprised me. It explained why the philosophy was called “Satanism” too.

Under the label of “Satanism”, it neatly ties together my worldview, philosophy, religion, and personality into one thing. It definitely describes who I am. So I’ve kind of always been a Satanist, but only had this exact world view for several years, and only called myself a Satanist for one year.