Opening to new beliefs.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Armed Forces have enlisted their first Satanist after a naval technician serving on a frigate was granted permission to practice his beliefs while at sea, the Ministry of Defence says.

Defending the decision to allow a Satanist among the Royal Navy's ranks, a ministry spokesman said on Sunday it was an "equal opportunities employer" and did not discriminate against specific religious beliefs.

"He went to his commanding officer with a request to practice his beliefs on board his ship and it was granted ... We believe he is the first avowed Satanist to serve in the military, but there is no official register of beliefs," the spokesman said.

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said Chris Cranmer, 24, from Edinburgh would be allowed to have a funeral carried out by the Church of Satan should he be killed in action.

The Church of Satan was founded in the 1960s, but Satanism can refer to a diverse set of practices that include viewing Satan as a force of nature.

Members of the church, which rejects Christian ideas of God and the Devil, follow 11 Satanic Rules of the Earth.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...itain_satanist

hmmmm so man ways to appraoch this, the army is the army it's a different world.....Then there's the way PC has destroyed England and is only another nail in the coffin....or I could quote a line From Mobey dick about the Devil in the deep blue see.....

have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? just wondering.

I think it's totally appropriate.

eh, what bunch of balony. as said before, the fuss is all over the term "satanist" if that person was to call themself an "naturalistic exsitentialist" no one one would care, or make a big deal about it. I think that the Church of Satan just used the name and the satanic myhtology as a well-plotted media play to generate contraversy about a relativley non-radical (or orginal for that matter) idealogy.