If you look at "spirituality" as a whole, the vast majority of it comes down to discovering the divine self. Enough so that even in fiction, it can become a defining catch phrase (thou art god), or be applied to every form of human thinking (know thyself).
You don't have to believe it in the same sense of faith that religions tend to use. You joust t have to recognize that any divinity in the universe would be so universal that everything is god
If you're asking why a Satanist would want you to believe any particular thing, I think a significant majority of Satanists would agree: nobody wants you to believe anything in particular. Proselytism is something Satanists probably tend to hate about other religions.
But if you're wondering why Satanists believe it (or at least why the Satanists who believe it believe it -- though I expect that's a very popular belief among Satanists)...
It's kindof the whole deal with the left-hand path. The way left-hand path sort of folks will describe it to you, the right-hand path is about trying to get "closer to god" by being more "holy" to get more in god's good graces. The left-hand path is about becoming (a) god (or perhaps to recover from the right-hand-path-originated delusion that you're not a god already). To claim/own power oneself rather than to supplicate to another being. (Mind you, there are left-hand path practices centered around working with entities, but even those have as their goal to request the assistance of said entities in order to be(come) a god oneself.)
Honestly, if there's one belief more widespread among folks who identify with the "left-hand path" label than that they either are or ought to become a god, I'm not sure what it would be.
Oh, one more thing I'll say. It's probable, at least in my estimation, that a certain fairly sizeable percentage of Satanists out there may "believe" the statement "I am a god" more as an affirmation, goal, self-fulfilling prophesy, or some such than as a tenet.
The way I've heard it used it's "I'm in charge of my own life", not "I have super powers".
LaVey's Big Idea was this: people make their gods in their own image. What you hate, God hates. What you love, God also loves. You're basically worshiping an image of yourself already, so why not just replace the godhead with yourself and be done with it? Of course, there are people who are tormented by God, too, but LaVey would probably just call those people masochists.
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why would you need to believe that "you're your own god" ?
Thou art god.
Know thyself.
If you look at "spirituality" as a whole, the vast majority of it comes down to discovering the divine self. Enough so that even in fiction, it can become a defining catch phrase (thou art god), or be applied to every form of human thinking (know thyself).
You don't have to believe it in the same sense of faith that religions tend to use. You joust t have to recognize that any divinity in the universe would be so universal that everything is god
when everything is god, nothing is god.
If you're asking why a Satanist would want you to believe any particular thing, I think a significant majority of Satanists would agree: nobody wants you to believe anything in particular. Proselytism is something Satanists probably tend to hate about other religions.
But if you're wondering why Satanists believe it (or at least why the Satanists who believe it believe it -- though I expect that's a very popular belief among Satanists)...
It's kindof the whole deal with the left-hand path. The way left-hand path sort of folks will describe it to you, the right-hand path is about trying to get "closer to god" by being more "holy" to get more in god's good graces. The left-hand path is about becoming (a) god (or perhaps to recover from the right-hand-path-originated delusion that you're not a god already). To claim/own power oneself rather than to supplicate to another being. (Mind you, there are left-hand path practices centered around working with entities, but even those have as their goal to request the assistance of said entities in order to be(come) a god oneself.)
Honestly, if there's one belief more widespread among folks who identify with the "left-hand path" label than that they either are or ought to become a god, I'm not sure what it would be.
Oh, one more thing I'll say. It's probable, at least in my estimation, that a certain fairly sizeable percentage of Satanists out there may "believe" the statement "I am a god" more as an affirmation, goal, self-fulfilling prophesy, or some such than as a tenet.
The way I've heard it used it's "I'm in charge of my own life", not "I have super powers".
LaVey's Big Idea was this: people make their gods in their own image. What you hate, God hates. What you love, God also loves. You're basically worshiping an image of yourself already, so why not just replace the godhead with yourself and be done with it? Of course, there are people who are tormented by God, too, but LaVey would probably just call those people masochists.