Maybe I could clear a little bit up for you confused people...
Philosophically there is two main types of Satanists, Theistic and Athiestic. I will give you the Athiestic view point, since it is more logical...
Satan, the literal meaning is opposition or advesary. Satan does not represent the embodiement of 'evil' or negative 'energy'. It is simple the will of the few who question what is, and create what is. Satanism is a life loving philosophy, which see's balance amongst the chaos and peace. A reflection of nature and the universe shows within us, and that is what Satan represents, the natural order of the universe and the existence in which we all dwell.
Satan is in direct defiance of the Christian Church, for Satan represents indulgence over abstinence, and vital existence over spiritual pipe dreams and so on...
Satan allows the freedom of mind and the creation of universes within, giving birth to ration and logical steps. This is also in defiance of the Church, that Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often than those that walk on all fours, who because of his 'divine spiritual and intellectual development' has become the most vicious animal of all.
We questions such things as God for the following reasons...
If God created us, then who created God? The Christian God says only he exists, so that makes him an Athiest, though all of these others God's in other religions do exist, in the mental state and to strong followers in the physical state as well.
A simple answer, we created God, as God came from the mind that speculated the perception forced down upon them. It is simple, man is capable of writing his fantasies down, man is capable of flying, man is capable of creating and destroying God's.
Why does the bible say the world is only 6000 years old? When we have carbondated rocks that are over 3 million years old?
Why does the bible excuse dinosaurs as a myth? When we have uncovered whole skeletons?
Why does religion in general deny the theory of evolution? When all life adapts to their enviroment, and changes physically, yet the instincts will remain the same. All instincts say, reproduce, and survive by any means necessary.
Murder, death, disease, combat are all necessities of life. For all things that are born are born to die. For what do we know after death? Simple...we know nothing.
Among the spectrum of balance, destruction gives birth to creation and vice versa. A star that goes supernovae may destroy what is around it, but it gives birth to more stars, planets and life.
To build a parking lot you need to destroy the ground there to build. It is simple logic. Salvation is among both chaos and destruction.
With all of the crazy things in life it is too hard for the rational and logical beings to follow a faith (trusting something with no evidence of it's existence).
That is where Satanism comes in.
Satan is the universe, nature, those who accept their nature are a 'pure' reflection of what is.
Quod natura non sunt turpia---What is natural cannot be bad.
All things in life are natural, and all things in life have the potential to benefit a being, if the being acknowledges and learns from their observance.
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto---I am human, therefore nothing human is strange to me.
Misanthropia may be common among such people though, but those who say they are misanthropic, yet they say they also love themselves is a hipocrite. To hate the human race is to hate yourself. So I think that some would agree that misanthropia is an exaggeration, though I do find society distasteful.
In my perspective, not speaking for any other Satanists, Satanism or Satan is what is existence and we are all part of 'him' in the mental being that man creates, and destroys.
For the objects man posseses was created by man or improvised from the natural materials of the Earth.
The true Satan is the mind in which all infernal dwellings gather.
