Satanic Activity Books Coming to a School Near You?

Color Annabel’s study filled with Satanic literature and philosophy. Connect the dots to make an inverted pentagram. Navigate a maze to “find the fabled Necronomicon.”

Those are just a few of the activities members of The Satanic Temple would like to see Florida school children have access to in the coming weeks. The group announced recently it wants to distribute pamphlets that explain the temple’s philosophy, along with information about the practice of Satanism to students. It also wants to share information about students’ legal rights to practice the religion in schools.

The effort to put religious materials in Orange County schools came about after the district there gave a green light to an evangelical Christian group to hand out Bibles to kids. The district also censored the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the temple asserts.

“We would never seek to establish a precedent of disseminating our religious materials in public schools because we believe our constitutional values are better served by respecting a strong separation of Church and State,” Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves is quoted on the Temple’s website as saying. “However, if a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students — as is the case in Orange County, Florida — we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions, as opposed to standing idly by while one religious voice dominates the discourse and delivers propaganda to youth.”

While the temple has voiced its desire to share information and activity booklets with students in Orange County, it is unclear if that will happen. The Orange County School District said it would have to approve any literature before it is handed out to students, Click Orlando reported.

“The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will,” its website explains.

To read the temple’s full statement on Orange County Schools, visit its website. To view an example of its activity book for children, check out its online PDF.

What are your thoughts on this? Should The Satanic Temple be allowed to distribute literature in public schools? Tell us by commenting below.

Photo Credit: Screen shot of the temple’s activity book.