When did disagreeing with someone become a personal attack?
Seriously.
When did we reach the point where someone can say, “I believe something different than you,” and suddenly they’re treated like they’ve personally insulted your entire bloodline?
I’m not talking about people who use their beliefs to justify cruelty, discrimination, or harming others. That’s an entirely different conversation.
I’m talking about ordinary differences.
Religion. Spirituality. Politics. The way we raise our children. The way we understand the world.
Somewhere along the way, it seems like we forgot that two people can disagree without one of them needing to be the villain.
And the more I started thinking about that, the further down the rabbit hole I went.
Because apparently, humans have a pretty impressive history of turning things we don’t understand into things we’re afraid of.
And sometimes?
That fear gets people hurt.
When a Belief Becomes Part of Who You Are
Here’s something interesting about beliefs.
We don’t always experience them as opinions.
Sometimes, we experience them as pieces of ourselves.
Our beliefs can be connected to our families, childhoods, communities, memories, and identities. They can help us understand the world and give meaning to things we otherwise struggle to explain.
So when someone challenges a deeply held belief, it can feel like they’re challenging us.
Even when they aren’t.
Think about how differently these two sentences can feel:
“I don’t believe in God.”
“You’re wrong for believing in God.”
Those aren’t the same statement.
One describes a person’s own beliefs.
The other judges someone else’s.
Yet sometimes people hear the second when someone has only said the first.
And this isn’t exclusive to religion.
People can become defensive about political opinions, parenting decisions, traditions, and even things as ridiculous as which music is better.
Although, to be fair, some of y’all have terrible taste in music. 🤣
But seriously.
We tend to be more comfortable with information that supports what we already believe. When something challenges our worldview, it’s tempting to dismiss it before we’ve really considered it.
And if we start treating every disagreement like a threat, conversations become competitions.
We’re no longer listening to understand.
We’re listening for the next opportunity to win.
The Difference Between Respect and Agreement
I want to make something clear before we go any further.
I’m not religious.
That doesn’t mean I hate religion.
It doesn’t mean I think everyone who believes in a god is unintelligent, gullible, or incapable of thinking for themselves.
It means I don’t share those beliefs.
That’s it.
If someone finds comfort in their faith, I’m not interested in taking that comfort away from them.
If someone wants to tell me what their religion means to them, I’m genuinely interested in understanding.
But there’s a difference between sharing your beliefs with someone and insisting they adopt them.
And that difference goes both ways.
An atheist shouldn’t have to pretend to believe in God to deserve respect.
A Christian shouldn’t have to abandon Christianity to deserve respect.
The same principle applies to Muslims, Jews, Pagans, Buddhists, Satanists, people who practice other religions, and people who don’t identify with any religion at all.
We can question ideas.
We can criticize harmful teachings and practices.
We can disagree passionately.
But disagreement alone isn’t permission to dehumanize somebody.
And history has shown us what can happen when we forget that.
The Satanic Panic: When Fear Became Evidence
Let’s travel back to the 1980s.
Across parts of the United States, fears spread about secret Satanic cults supposedly operating beneath the surface of ordinary communities.
People became convinced that hidden networks were involved in ritual abuse, sacrifice, and other horrific crimes.
Some allegations involved daycare centers.
Others involved supposed secret ceremonies, coded symbols, and elaborate conspiracies.
The accusations were terrifying.
And because they were terrifying, people wanted answers.
The problem was that fear and evidence weren’t always being treated as two different things.
Some investigations were influenced by sensational media coverage, questionable interviewing methods, and assumptions about what Satanists supposedly did.
And the consequences were real.
Families were torn apart. People were accused of terrible crimes. Some faced prosecutions and imprisonment.
In 1992, FBI agent Kenneth Lanning published an investigative guide addressing allegations of ritual child abuse.
His conclusion wasn’t that child abuse didn’t happen.
Quite the opposite.
He emphasized that genuine abuse needed to be investigated seriously, but that claims of widespread, organized Satanic conspiracies lacked the corroborating evidence necessary to establish them.
He warned against allowing assumptions about Satanism to interfere with finding out what actually happened.
Think about that for a moment.
Investigators could become so focused on proving a particular explanation that they risked overlooking other explanations—or even undermining investigations into real abuse.
And that’s what makes this history so disturbing.
When we’re convinced we already know who the monster is, we might stop looking carefully at the evidence.
But What Actually Is Satanism?
Here’s where things get even more interesting.
Ask ten people what Satanism is, and you might get ten very different answers.
Some will picture devil worship.
Some will picture rituals and sacrifices.
Some will picture a group of atheists challenging religious authority.
And some probably picture a bunch of people wearing black, listening to heavy metal, and hanging out in cemeteries.
Which, listen, I do enjoy a good cemetery. But that’s hardly a religious qualification. 🤣
The truth is that Satanism isn’t one single belief system.
For example, The Satanic Temple is a nontheistic religious organization. Its members generally don’t believe in a literal Satan. Instead, Satan serves as a symbolic figure associated with questioning authority, personal liberty, and resistance to arbitrary power.
The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, is another distinct tradition. Its philosophy is atheistic and emphasizes individualism, self-determination, and Satan as a symbol rather than a supernatural being.
And then there are theistic Satanists, whose beliefs can involve understanding Satan as an actual spiritual being or deity.
These groups and traditions aren’t interchangeable. They don’t all share the same beliefs, practices, or goals.
So when someone hears the word Satanist and immediately assumes they know everything about that person’s morals, intentions, and behavior, they’re making a pretty enormous leap.
You don’t have to agree with Satanism.
You don’t have to like its symbolism.
You don’t even have to be comfortable with it.
But if you’re going to form an opinion about something, shouldn’t you at least understand what you’re forming an opinion about?
And shouldn’t accusations of actual wrongdoing require actual evidence?
Why We Fear What We Don’t Understand
Here’s the thing about unfamiliar beliefs.
They’re easy to turn into something frightening when we never speak to the people who hold them.
We hear a label.
We associate that label with a story.
And eventually, the story becomes more important than the person.
Sometimes those stories come from our families.
Sometimes from our communities.
Sometimes from the media.
And sometimes they’re ideas we’ve carried for so long that we’ve forgotten where we learned them.
That doesn’t automatically make every belief we inherited wrong.
But it does make those beliefs worth examining.
Because there’s a difference between saying, “This conflicts with my values,” and saying, “Anyone who believes this must be dangerous.”
One is a personal judgment about an idea.
The other is a sweeping judgment about human beings.
And those aren’t the same thing.
You Can Respect Someone and Still Draw a Line
Now, before someone reads this and decides I’m suggesting we should tolerate absolutely everything in the name of being nice—
No.
Absolutely fucking not.
Respect does not mean allowing someone to mistreat you.
It doesn’t mean staying silent when someone promotes hatred.
It doesn’t mean ignoring abuse, discrimination, threats, or violations of someone else’s rights.
And it certainly doesn’t mean pretending every belief has equal evidence behind it.
You can respect a person’s humanity while firmly opposing their ideas or actions.
You can say, “I understand that this matters to you, but I disagree.”
You can say, “I don’t want to participate in that.”
You can say, “You’re entitled to your beliefs, but you’re not entitled to treat me that way.”
And sometimes, you can simply decide that a conversation isn’t going anywhere and walk away.
Not every disagreement needs a winner.
Not every opinion deserves an endless debate.
And not every person needs access to your life.
But disagreement itself shouldn’t automatically turn someone into an enemy.
So, When Did Disagreement Become Disrespect?
Maybe there isn’t one specific moment.
Maybe this isn’t even a new problem.
Human beings have spent centuries arguing about religion, identity, morality, and who gets to decide what’s right.
We’ve created communities around shared beliefs.
We’ve also excluded, persecuted, and sometimes harmed people for believing differently.
The internet didn’t invent that behavior.
It just gave us a much faster way to participate in it.
Now we can form an opinion about someone we’ve never met, based on a sentence we’ve barely read, in a conversation we know almost nothing about.
And somehow feel completely certain we’re right.
That’s a little terrifying when you think about it.
Because how many times have we misunderstood someone?
How many times have we assumed we knew what they meant?
How many times have we judged a person before asking a single question?
I’m not pretending I’m immune to it.
I’m human.
I’ve made assumptions.
I’ve been wrong.
And I’ll probably be wrong about something again.
But I’d rather recognize that possibility than convince myself I have nothing left to learn.
This week, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the stories we’re told, the beliefs we inherit, and the assumptions we make about people.
And I keep coming back to one simple thought.
You don’t have to believe what I believe to deserve kindness from me.
I don’t need you to agree with me about religion.
I don’t need you to see the world exactly the way I do.
I don’t even need you to like every opinion I have.
But I do think we should be able to recognize the difference between a disagreement and an attack.
Between questioning an idea and humiliating a person.
Between standing by our values and using those values as an excuse to be cruel.
Because if the only people we’re capable of respecting are the people who agree with us, then maybe we haven’t learned much about respect at all.
And maybe the next time someone tells us something we don’t understand, instead of immediately deciding they’re wrong, dangerous, or stupid—
We could try asking a question.
Not to trap them.
Not to convert them.
Not to win.
Just to understand.
Until next time,
-Destiny 🖤
P.S. You can disagree with someone without making it your entire personality. I promise. 🤣 Sometimes “That’s interesting. I see it differently” is a complete sentence. You don’t have to turn Thanksgiving dinner into a courtroom drama.
Sources & Further Reading
The following sources provide historical documentation and information about the organizations discussed in this article.
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation — Kenneth V. Lanning (1992)
Investigator’s Guide to Allegations of “Ritual” Child Abuse
Published through the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. This report examines allegations of organized ritual abuse, the difficulties of investigating them, and the importance of distinguishing corroborated evidence from assumptions.
Read the original FBI report (PDF)
View the U.S. Department of Justice summary
2. The Satanic Temple — Official FAQ
Explains the organization’s nontheistic beliefs, its use of Satan as a symbolic figure, its guiding tenets, and how it distinguishes itself from other Satanic traditions.
The Satanic Temple: Frequently Asked Questions
3. Church of Satan — Official Organizational FAQ
Provides information about the Church of Satan’s founding by Anton LaVey in 1966 and its organizational philosophy.
Church of Satan: About the Organization
4. Church of Satan — Fundamental Beliefs
Explains the organization’s atheistic understanding of Satan as a symbol of individualism rather than a literal supernatural being.
Church of Satan: Fundamental Beliefs
Note: The organizational websites above are primary sources for how those groups describe their own beliefs. They are not independent assessments or endorsements of those beliefs.
