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2 cents:
Yorick, G'Kar is quite correct regarding the medieval christian church taking the Horned God of older pagan traditions and associating him with the Devil as a means of converting peoples to Christianity and turning them away from the older pagan traditions. In those older traditions, the Horned God had no such connotations of evil as was imposed upon him later by Christianity.
Today, as G'Kar said, some people choose to call themselves "Satanists" in defiance of what they perceive as the Church stealing and perverting the concept of the Horned God, as a means of claiming him back.
I can't say that I agree with that sort of defiance in choosing the name, though. It seems unnecessarily provocative.
In short, there are really at least two distinct types of "Satanists" -- those as G'Kar described, which are really going back to pre-christian pagan traditions, and those who really do get kicks out of worshipping or pretending to worship the Christian Devil. I think the latter are in the minority, being really quite rare, from what I understand.
[This message has been edited by Diogenes Of Pumpkintown (edited 10-11-2001).]
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