Atheists are sometimes said to be Satanists. However, atheists reject Satan just as they reject all gods, demons, and imaginary animals. Only people who actually believe in Satan can qualify as Satanists. (Those people also happen to believe in gods.)
Modern public practice of Satanism began in 1966, when the Church of Satan was founded by Howard Stanton Levey (later Anton LaVey). Surprisingly, the two major trends were Theistic and Atheistic Satanism. We can chuckle at Theistic Satanists for their worship of Satan as a real supernatural deity. The Atheistic flavors idolize Satan in a symbolic sense.
LaVeyan Satanism, the most well-known worship, is based on individualism, self-control, and revenge mentality. Adherents consider themselves truth-seekers, skeptics, and adversaries of religion. Peter Gilmore, a Church of Satan leader, notes:
Satanists do not believe in the supernatural, in neither God nor the Devil. To the Satanist, he is his own God. [...] Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshipped, rather a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will. Thus any concept of sacrifice is rejected as a Christian aberration—in Satanism there’s no deity to which one can sacrifice.
They also believe in magic, which seats them decisively on the couch of hypocritical loopy-loos.
