Free (DRM-free PDF) The Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities [Quiz & Colour Fun]

[ATDrake]

Well, it's the last day of Banned Books Week for this year, and accordingly, there's something fitting to post:

The Satanic Children's Big Book of Activities is a children's activity book filled with with the usual sorts of cutesy colourable quizzes that you might expect, free courtesy of The Satanic Temple, who also make this available in paper copies in their gift shop, by the way.

As for why they made this in the first place, well, it was kind of to protest the attempting censoring of atheist literature while still allowing Bibles and other religious materials to be distributed in public schools in a Florida district.

When the ruling finally came out that if the religious stuff could be passed out in a publicly-funded place, then the atheist stuff had to have equal opportunity, The Satanic Temple came up with this fun colouring activity book for the kiddies on the reasoning that:

The spokesman for the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, explained that his organization “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.”

“However,” he continued, “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.”

Currently free directly from @ The Satanic Temple's website (DRM-free PDF available worldwide). About a 10 meg file, IIRC.

Here's The Satanic Temple's official press release for the situation, and the ONTD Political blogpost where* I found this.

Just as a reminder, if you'd like to discuss the reasons for the creation and distribution of this book with your fellow MR members, we've a dedicated Politics & Religion forum just for doing that, which you can join via the instructions found in this thread here, if you're interested.

If you just want to talk about the difficulty of the Word Jumble or other of the activities found inside, that should still be a thread-safe discussion here.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because freedom of speech applied equally to all (allowing for blocking slander and hate speech and shouting FIRE in crowded theatres and all), and freedom of (and from) religion (regardless of which particular one you choose to practice or not), and the separation of Church and State are important, even when one lives in a country when they're not quite phrased in those terms.

Enjoy!

Description
(There's no actual blurb provided for this in the gift shop, but it contains a Spot the Differences, a Dot-to-Dot, a Word Jumble, a Word Search, a Maze, and all the pages can be coloured.)

* Also, if you're wondering about the Baphomet statue referenced in the article, here's two more ONTD Political blogposts about it.

I especially like the bit about making a mould of it in case of vandalism, "so they can pop these things out like evil, terribly expensive action figures whenever they need a new one".

[crich70]

A poorly chosen name for their coloring book I'd think since it goes against logic.

[ATDrake]

How so?

It's a Book, it's full of Activities, it's for Children, and it's Satanic. That seems logical enough to me.

Admittedly, it's not all that Big, but that may refer to the printed size?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

How so?

It's a Book, it's full of Activities, it's for Children, and it's Satanic. That seems logical enough to me.

Admittedly, it's not all that Big, but that may refer to the printed size?

I guess I've just never equated the word Satanic with innocent childhood fun. Not that I'm saying anyone else here is either.

[mrscoach]

I'm still snickering over the name of the guy in the article. His last name is Greaves, but I'm not sure if he uses the long e sound or the long a sound (I've heard it both ways), but in my head I called him Lucian Graves. Did his parents give him that name? Or did he adopt it later?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by crich70

I guess I've just never equated the word Satanic with innocent childhood fun. Not that I'm saying anyone else here is either.

Well, actual Satanism as practiced by actual Satanists (as opposed to the common Hollywood media depiction of them) is really more of a philosophical stance than a religion, from what I've read about it. And anything can be kiddified if you try hard enough.

Why, just look at all those Cthulhu plushies (of which I am not ashamed to say that I own no fewer than three and would have gotten more if the shipping up to Canada weren't so expensive). Or the fearsome bear, turned from humankind's forest foe into its cuddliest sleeping companion. Or what Disney did to a whole lot of rather gory cautionary fairy tales.

Reputation of the religion involved aside, it really is a perfectly cromulent colouring activity book suitable† for the kiddies.

Originally Posted by mrscoach

I'm still snickering over the name of the guy in the article. His last name is Greaves, but I'm not sure if he uses the long e sound or the long a sound (I've heard it both ways), but in my head I called him Lucian Graves. Did his parents give him that name? Or did he adopt it later?

It's an adopted name, and there's an interesting interview with him over at Vice.com (safe for work for this particular article; the rest of the site, well…), who also have some excellent pictures of the aforementioned goat-headed Baphomet statue (perhaps less safe for work, depending on where you work if it's a fundamentalist sort of place that objects to your browsing pictures of goat-headed Baphomet statues at work).

† Probably moreso than those Jack Chick tracts which I've heard that some areas in the States tend to pass out instead of candy on Hallowe'en.

[pisceschick]

Haha, thanks for the link! I'd read about this (and the why) and meant to check it out but my computer decided to freeze and I was distracted.

[Catlady]

I think it's sick.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

As for why they made this in the first place, well, it was kind of to protest the attempting censoring of atheist literature while still allowing Bibles and other religious materials to be distributed in public schools in a Florida district.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

It's a Book, it's full of Activities, it's for Children, and it's Satanic. That seems logical enough to me.

I think it's a neat idea, but I'm disappointed in the execution.

It looks to me like it's intended much more to annoy adults than to educate or entertain children. In fact, the bullies and grumpy teacher actually remind me of characters in a Chick tract. I would like to see something like this done in a much more genuinely child-friendly way.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I think it's a neat idea, but I'm disappointed in the execution.

It looks to me like it's intended much more to annoy adults than to educate or entertain children. In fact, the bullies and grumpy teacher actually remind me of characters in a Chick tract. I would like to see something like this done in a much more genuinely child-friendly way.

I get the point the publishers were trying to make and agree that the book's not genuinely child-friendly. (For that I'm glad.)

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I think it's a neat idea, but I'm disappointed in the execution.

It looks to me like it's intended much more to annoy adults than to educate or entertain children. In fact, the bullies and grumpy teacher actually remind me of characters in a Chick tract. I would like to see something like this done in a much more genuinely child-friendly way.

Yeah, The Satanic Temple is pretty much trolling when it does these things* in reaction to the encroach of private beliefs on the publicly-funded sphere, and even though it technically fulfills all the forms of a themed children's colouring activity book this seems to have been a pretty fast knee-jerk response to the ruling mentioned in the OP, and they very likely don't expect to see it ever being taken up by actual kids†, due to where it's going to be handed out.

That said, they did mention that they were planning to create more such literature to make available for distribution, and it might not hurt to drop them a line and suggest a more educational bent to at least one of their possible upcoming pamphlets, if you're really interested.

* As opposed to their Adopt-A-Highway cleanup/maintenance project which is apparently seriously for serious. Mostly.

† This may actually be a second level of satire, to underscore how they don't think that other religious materials being passed out in schools are really all that kid-friendly, either, despite the guise of the packaging.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

† This may actually be a second level of satire, to underscore how they don't think that other religious materials being passed out in schools are really all that kid-friendly, either, despite the guise of the packaging.

That could be argued about but then this thread would probably end up being transferred to politics and religion.

[ATDrake]

Well, if you'd like to discuss it, we could head over to P&R and continue there.

Maybe in the About Posts in the Religious Images thread, since this doesn't really seem to merit a dedicated one of its own, unless one wants to consider all of the The Satanic Temple's activities in context for the purposes of argument?

[sl42]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I think it's sick.

How so? Taking a look at the book, I'm seeing 10 pages with stuff like unscrambling letters to solve for the words "Friendship", "Compassion", "Respect", "Empathy", "Justice", "Reason", and "Freedom".

As for making new stories around a side character from other religions' mythologies and calling it a religion, that's just funny. Though I would assume most "Satanists" are simply protesting mainstream religions, taking a look at the "Theistic Satanism" page on Wikipedia shows that there are some groups who take it quite seriously as a religion - and seem to promote generally positive values (personal development, seeking knowledge, etc.) and the character of Satan in their beliefs is quite different from the villain of the Abrahamic religions (though it can be assumed is the same character that appears in those stories only - according to their beliefs - deliberately mischaracterized and misrepresented).

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, if you'd like to discuss it, we could head over to P&R and continue there.

Maybe in the About Posts in the Religious Images thread, since this doesn't really seem to merit a dedicated one of its own, unless one wants to consider all of the The Satanic Temple's activities in context for the purposes of argument?

I'm just saying that it's likely that it would devolve into such discussion. Certainly I've never seen any sign of handouts for kids that aren't kid friendly, though I do have to admit that I don't know of any such hand outs outside my own belief system. Going into detail would probably make it necessary for it to be transferred though.