Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple: Comparison and Contrast

If you don't mind, I'll separate these out and address them, starting with the last part first

►On the other human beings can selfish and self-serving while only
advocating for their own benefits even if it means hurting other people.
It's only natural for people to look after their own. Human being are
complex creatures with varying moralities and ethics.

Satanism is an acknowledgement that all human activity is inherently selfish-driven.  Genuine altruism is just about the most un-Satanic thing one could possibly conceive of, mostly because its not a natural part of the psychological makeup of the human animal.  To be completely devoid of self-interest is to be a drone and subject entirely to the will of others.

Having said that humans exist on a sliding scale.  The point of the individual focus of Satanism is to allow the individual to find that internal equilibrium that allows them to live their best and most rewarding life, in whatever form that takes, while maintaining human accountability.  Its not a blank check to act like an unthinking jackass.  It is taking ownership of your actions.

►Human beings can be naturally empathetic and selfless to an extent.
Fight for injustices in the world and for other people who may be
treated unfairly in society. Human beings can be this and still advocate
for others people's freedom to speak, and bodily autonomy.

Compassion is one of the three core types of Satanic ritual for a reason.  The human animal is a social creature, but on a sliding scale.  There is nothing prohibiting a Satanist from taking part in acts of charity or compassion, so long as they are not doing it at the cost of their own well-being without a damn good reason.

Now to address your larger question, and I will try to be as fair about this as I possibly can, given my personal biases. 

In terms of the differences between the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, the short answer is that it comes down to a matter of substance and organization.

If you understand the principles of Satanism as a religion, then the CoS will require very little explaining.  It exists to represent the religion of Satanism as it was codified as a religion.  Full stop.  Being an individualist religion, it makes sense that the CoS does very little in terms of directing or organizing in the lives of its members, and as such leaves much of those decisions to the individual members themselves.

CoS members do not have a "community" in the traditional sense, as members are not even required to like each other, but small pockets of social circles do form among members with similarly-aligned interests.

By contrast, The Satanic Temple is almost entirely community-driven.  The sum of its religious thought offerings are just 7 tenets (although it used to be 9, back when they initially claimed to be literal devil worshipers, but I could spend no small amount of time dedicated to the "malleability" of their ideology depending on what works best for fundraising).

Then there's the matter of their political stunts and activist antics, which are the real meat and potatoes of their ideology.  Functionally, they use the visual trappings of religion to prop up antics of political theater that seem to serve the purposes of gaining press attention, and attracting fundraising from people who are easily impressed with performative stunts, regardless of their effectiveness.

Which brings me to the last major distinction I'll make on this topic:  All the vacuous posturing and political theater could be forgivable if it actually got results.  One of the takeaways from The Satanic Bible is that "victory is the basis of right", and The Satanic Temple is woefully inept in that department.  Every lawsuit they've brought before a court has either been dismissed or withdrawn.

From an activist perspective, there are simply too many other more competent activist groups out there fighting the same battles with better results (ACLU, FFRF, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL, etc) to consider The Satanic Temple a worthwhile use of time and/or money, and indeed, very few outside the TST bubble take them seriously as an activist force.

I hope this answers at least a few of your questions.

but this brand of satanism is VERY heavily inspired by ayn randism/objectivism. anton lavey himself was an ayn rand fanboy. i shouldn't have to point out the problem with randism and atlas shrugged, but in case you actually want to research, here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-happens-when-you-take-ayn-rand-seriously
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-10-reasons-ayn-rand-was-dead-wrong/
https://www.rotman.uwo.ca/the-system-that-wasnt-there-ayn-rands-failed-philosophy-and-why-it-matters/
there are plenty more sources just a google click away if these are not satisfactory enough. It's.. frankly, alarming, how you say that satanism is about realizing that human nature is to be selfishly self driven which is the core concept of objectivism. altruism isn't bad. being selfless isn't bad.
it's contradictory to state the above but also go on to say that its about finding the equilibrium and that one of the core satanic rituals is compassion? if your compassion for others is driven by self interest and how it can benefit you, because this is pulling from objectivism again, because the focus on individualism from this concept is the total disregard of others as co-existing individuals and beings with their own wants, needs, feelings, and thoughts, if your compassion is from that, then it's not really compassion. it's you (royal you, to clarify, not you yourself) looking to manipulate others to feel good about yourself. which i find to be completely against what satanism SHOULD BE. no one person alive can be truly individualistic and self-oriented, anyway. humans as a species form friendships, relationships, communities, groups, clans, clubs, etc. for a reason. we are a species of companionship. we find the most fulfillment by just being THERE for others.
as for what satanism should be instead?? isn't it simple. the complete opposite of Christianity how it exists today, and it's hateful rhetoric.
i honestly could write a lengthy essay about what exactly satanism should be but i didn't come here and comment to end up starting a fight, but to bring light to the problems of LaVeyan Satanism.
/gen /nm

also yes i consider myself a satanist i'm saying all this in good faith dw.
not sure how spacehey is gonna format this, hopefully it's not one big paragraph.

I'm just going to respond to a couple key things here:

I never said selflessness is bad.  My assertion is that it doesn't truly exist.  Even if the benefit is abstract and intangible, you still got something out of it.

Case-in-point:  I periodically give a couple loose bills I have laying around the car to people I see panhandling money at intersections.  It doesn't necessarily benefit me in any real, tangible way, but I do get the satisfaction of knowing that I made someone's day slightly less shitty.  I still got something out of that exchange.  If it didn't come with some kind of reward, no matter how abstract, people wouldn't do it...even if that reward is nothing more than a feeling of accomplishment.

Even Christians are still driven by self-interest, its just that they take seem to take pleasure in acts of self-debasement.  What separates them from the overt masochist is that the masochist is at least honest about what they want.

Selfishness is not a goal.  It is simply an acknowledgement of the way people are.

In a way, I feel like I've kind of already addressed this above.  Generally-speaking, it goes against all animal logic to treat a person with consideration if that consideration is not reciprocated.

The key part you're missing is the "rational" part of "rational self-interest".  Its not a blank check to be an unthinking jackass, and its kind of troubling that you made that leap.  That's like people who can't imagine being able to destroy someone without immediately thinking of killing them.  There are plenty of ways to be civically-engaged while still be honest about your own interests.  What you're demonstrating right now is binary thinking.

As a Satanist, you must understand that your actions have consequences within the larger scope of action and reaction in the universe.  Humans are not some kind of uniquely-immune species from those laws. 

And as for Rand...I'm not personally a big fan of Rand, but then I'm not required to be.  Hell, I'm not even required to like LaVey as a person, really.  Satanism draws some ideas from Objectivism, but it draws ideas from a lot of philosophies that LaVey deemed useful to disentangle the individual from the self-deceit and bondage of spiritual religions.  You mostly hear about the Rand thing from people who find the existence of the Church of Satan inconvenient to their objectives.

At the end of the day, Satanism was first self-defined as a religion by the Church of Satan in 1966.  It has been accepted as a subject matter authority since then, and it is under no obligation to validate anything that does not fall under its definitions.

And despite some other organizations' fumings about how the Church of Satan just wants to be the only Satanic org, The First Satanic Church still exists and apart from some kerfuffle at the leadership level of both organizations, you never hear a word about their application of Satanism from the Church of Satan.  Because they're still applying Satanism as it was codified, so that blows the entire "gatekeeping" argument right out of the water, imo.