An excerpt from the official Church of Satan website:

<b>"If you have read our books, you know that Satanism isn’t about taking drugs, and it isn’t about harming animals or children. Unlike many religions and philosophies, Satanism respects and exalts life. Children and animals are the purest expressions of that life force, and as such are held sacred and precious in the eyes of the Satanist. Besides, it is very un-Satanic to take any creature’s life against its will. It is equally un-Satanic to cloud your brain and impair your judgment with mind-altering substances."</b>

A religion and worship of the human body and the material world, not always the worship of the devil himself (unless you're of the Luciferian path). Satanism is type casted by the media along with witchcraft and paganism, as something evil... to be hated and feared whereas satanism does not promote violence, animal sacrifice or racial hatred in any manner. Satan keeps the church in business.

Satanism is not one single religion. Satanism is a broad category of religions, worldviews, and literature all featuring a favorable interpretation of Satan. Christians (and Muslims) regard their God as all-good and Satan as evil. But what is good? What is evil? Many of the moral values espoused in the Bible seem very strange from a modern Western point of view. In the Garden of Eden story, Adam and Eve are punished for eating from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." In other words, blind obedience to the Biblical God is considered "good," whereas independent moral judgment, based on one's own knowledge, is considered "evil." But, like many other educated people in the West today, Satanists do not agree with this idea at all. In the Book of Genesis, "God" seems to be outright threatened by human knowledge and achievement, both in the Garden of Eden story ("And the LORD God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.'" - Genesis 3:22) and then later in the Tower of Babel story ("But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'" - Genesis 11:5-7).

A religion with many definitions. No one person can truly tell you what Satanism is as a whole. What CAN be told though, is that Satanism is devided into many different fragments. Some people believe in Satan as a symbol of independence and freedom. This is called being a Symbolic Satanist. Where you believe in Satan as a Symbol for things greater then mortality and every day life and not as a real icon to be worshiped. Theistic Satanism (often reffered to as Luciferianism or more comonly Traditional Satanism) is a religion introduced by a man called Anton Szandor LaVey. I myself am a Theistic Satanist (you will prolly all vote thumbs down on this definition or hate me because I said that). Theistic Satanism is where you believe in Satan as an icon to be worshiped. Theistic Satanism is the opposite of Catholisicm but does not always include animal or child sacrifice, or drug use. I do not agree with sacrificing any living creature to worship an icon, and I myself do not do hard drugs for meditation purposes, however have done minor drugs to increase the power of meditation. But basically where Catholics have the "Holy Trinity" consisting of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit (which all happen to be the same person), Theistic Satanists/Traditional Satanists/Luciferians have Satan (Representing element of Fire), Lucifer (Representing element of Air), Belial (Representing element of Earth), and Leviathan (Representing element of Water). Where Catholics have the Ten Comm...

A widely misunderstood religion started by Anton LeVay.
The church practices self indulgences and frowns upon altruistic behavior. The Church of Satan in no way acknowledges the existence of any devine being neither good nor evil. They worship no devil, though the phrase "hail satan" is commonly used. However in the church Satan represent the repressed desires of all humans and therefore saying "hail satan" is to hail one's self.
It is commonly believed that the church of satan is a horrible group of people that should be feared. The CoS should only be feared if one is actually a member of an archaic religion which preaches self restraint and stupid moral systems that are truly outdated. To roughly quote LeVay one of the philosophies is if someone smacks you on the cheek smash him on his and ten times more for he that turns the other cheek is like the cowardly dog that roles over when kicked. Therefore the person above who stated he beat up on satanists at school was more a satanist than the person who laid there and took it while "chanting" the name of an entity that a true satanist would not even believe to truly exist.

Many religions have broken off from satanism including but not limited The temple of Set.

Satanism is very different from the worshipping of the Christian Satan, or demons. It's an atheistic philosophy of life, celebrating man's carnal instincts, and not to supress your indulgences. Anton Szandor LaVey was the first person to give this way of living a life, and he chose Satanism. If Satanism has nothing to do with the Devil or demons, why does it have the word Satan in it? Satan is a symbol for indulgence, for what other people perceive as "evil". We believe that man is God, so birthdays are the most important of the Satanic holidays. The other Satanic holidays are the Solstices, and Walpurgisnacht (Hallow's Eve). The symbol of Satanism is the pentagram, with the head of Baphomet in it. There are nine Satanic statements, and eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth. The Satanic Bible was released in 1966, written by LaVey. It contains the books of Satan, Lucifer, Belial, and others. As well, it contains the Thirteen Keys, translated by LaVey himself. So, in short, forget what people tell you about Satanism. It's not doing drugs, killing children, or sacrificing animals, it's a celebration of indulgence and man's body.

A religion based on indulgance rather than chastity, services include men dressed in long black robes and women dressing seductivly or nude. Does not promote multiple sexual relationships but does not chasty them if it fullfills the desires of the individual.