1 Aleister Crowley – an influential occultist and ceremonial magician.
2 Manly P. Hall – known for writings on esoteric philosophy.
3 Anton LaVey – established modern Satanism.
4 Grigori Rasputin – a controversial spiritual figure in Russian history.
5 Osho – a spiritual teacher known for controversial teachings and communes.
6 Jesus Christ – the foundational figure of Christianity.

  • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
    361·
    19 hours ago

    2 Manly P. Hall – known for writings on esoteric philosophy.

    That picture is actually of Gerald Gardner, the guy who founded (kind of? Its complicated) the religion of Wicca.

    That’s literally Gerald’s Wikipedia picture, while Manley Hall kina looks like he’d be a groyper twink if he were alive today

    To answer the question though, white Jesus easily has the most toxic fan club, by sheer volume of followers.

    Anton LaVey was an edgy fuck though, so he probably gets 2nd place for just being kinda cringe ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    • lps2@lemmy.ml
      10·
      12 hours ago

      CoS/LaVey are more like the petulant libertarian flavor of satanism.

      Satanic Temple are the chill ones

  • itisileclerk@lemmy.world
    8·
    20 hours ago

    For fuck sake, blond Jesus? This is (one of many) proof(s) that they are worshiping imaginary god and his son. They imagine the son with blond hair, I am guessing speaking English and talking about America.

  • durinn@programming.dev
    52·
    1 day ago

    7 Apophis - once an extremely powerful Goa’uld System Lord. Arch enemy of the Tau’ri, he impersonated the ancient Egyptian deity of chaos, darkness and fire.

  • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
    182·
    1 day ago

    Jesus, by far. The people who have been murdered in his name is probably close to or over a good billion, right?

    He’s not really a “foundational figure of Christianity” though, his image was just co-opted by the Roman empire which then created the religion also co-opting the actual “Jewish revival” Jesus was at the core of (bringing the fundamentals of monotheism back into mind and expanding the teachings to everyone, not just a small select community).

    • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Jesus never asked for wars in his name though. It’s not part of his teachings.

      Christianity changed a lot once it became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.

      However Christianity also brought a lot of positive social changes with the focus on forgiveness and helping the unfortunate for example.

      It was spread by conquest, but also peaceful friendly missionaries. These missionaries often invented a writing system for the illiterate people they visited.

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
        2·
        17 hours ago

        Completely eyeballed it but I included every Western imperialist project that was done with Bible in hand and chanting variations of “Deus Vult”, so that’s large chunks of Asia, most of Africa, all of Latin America, and every Western incursion on West Asia from the Crusades to Iran today. And let’s not forget the pagan persecution in the West itself by the Romans. That’s a shit ton of people through the ages, right?

  • Godort@lemmy.ca
    372·
    1 day ago

    Taken per capita, probably LaVey. Taken as “Total harm done” it’s Jesus, no contest

  • notaviking@lemmy.world
    121·
    1 day ago

    I feel the inclusion of Jesus does this list a disservice, could have been like a Buddha, Mohamed, Jesus… List and I think that would have been better because of the league Jesus is playing in. Basically skews the list.

    But the first 5 in the list is an awesome list to choose from. I would say Rasputin due to the shit show Russia was going to be put through that I feel he was the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to cascading events I feel still persists

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      23 hours ago

      How large a fan base do most of these have? Should have used Count of St. Germain rather then Jesus, though.