Is he really such a bad guy?

from Falcon - Tuesday, February 20, 2007
accessed 959 times

This is in answer to a debate on a previous article, where a pastor questioned my disbelief in the Christian God. I will go so far as to defend the Christian "adversary", since it seems to me he has never been given a fair case. Perhaps through the opposition we can come to a more fair picture of "God".
I know, it may have been said before, but I think it needs reiteration.

According to Christianity, Satan is the epitome and embodiment of all evil things, described as "the father of all lies" in the Catholic Church's Catechism (paragraph 391). It is his works that tempt humans into doing bad deeds. If something evil occurs, we can be assured that Satan had something to do with it.

The History of Satan
According to Catholicism, Satan only exists because their god allows him to (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 395). This raises some serious issues about how righteous their god can be if he allows evil to exist, but I digress. Satan, as the story goes, began as the angel Lucifer, who out rightly rejected their god and rebelled against him. He cast Lucifer and those who followed him into Hell, a place of eternal torture and despair, where he was not present.

Like any good propaganda machine, Christian authorities have made sure to limit the dissemination of information on the enemy (Satan) to what they want the public to know. For example, we are never told why Satan rebelled against the Christian god. We're never given his side of the story. Were Satan's reasons for rejecting their god and attempting to overthrow him legitimate? From where I'm standing, they could certainly be considered valid if the authorities see fit to hide them from the general public.

For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the book that outlines Catholic beliefs in detail, has barely half a column in its index devoted to Satan and information on him, where as Jesus Christ has a full 6 pages! Sound like a propaganda machine to you, yet?

Christian authorities have made some big mistakes with their anti-Satan propaganda machine, however. Since there is so little information available about Satan, there is no record of anything he's done or any way to connect events to him. Christians simply and lazily accredit evil occurrences to Satan. A good example is the events of September 11. Within weeks, a doctored picture was floating around the Internet showing Satan's face in the clouds of smoke and debris emanating from the two towers, thus unfairly making Satan out to be responsible for these tragedies.

Satan vs. the god of the Christians
The only evidence we have to conclude Satan's utter evil is the Christian god's word, and frankly, his word isn't worth too much. He's shown a remarkable inconsistency in his actions and words, and he's hardly above lying or dishonest conduct. Straight after giving Moses the first set of Ten Commandments (which included "Thou shalt not kill"), he let Moses go ahead and order the Levites to go on a mass-murdering rampages, which they did, but only after he talked the god of the Christians out of killing all the people! According to 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, their god will send a strong illusion to people so that they will believe lies, so he can condemn everyone to Hell. After giving Moses the Ten Commandments, the sadistic god of the Christians orchestrated a litany of atrocities through isolated commandments that are simply too great in number to list here. I suggest checking out the The Skeptic's Annotated Bible to see for yourself. These events are detailed in Exodus 32. In 2 Chronicles 18:22, their god lies to prophets. Why should anyone take his word at face value if he has no problem with lying to us for no reason other than to have an excuse to condemn us to Hell?

Who's more evil? the Christian god or Satan? How can we determine this? Well, it's a simple matter of looking at the actions of both entities. Who's committed more evil acts? Who's done more harm to humanity? Who's been the most oppressive? Is Satan really as bad as the Christian Smear Campaign makes him out to be? Let's find out...

The Christian god

Takes away Adam and Eve's eternal life, thus committing the first murder, and holds their descendants responsible and visiting Adam and Eve's punishment down on their children. In today's moral standards, the sins of the father die with the father.
Destroys all life on Earth in a great flood, except for a drunk (Noah) and his family, for failing to worship him.
His tenth plague upon the Israelites was the unjustified murder of all firstborn sons in Egypt, which undoubtedly included little children.
Before sending the plagues to Egypt, he "hardened Pharaoh's heart" so that he wouldn't let the Israelites go, so he could have an excuse to visit horrible plagues upon them, like boils, killing cattle and murdering all firstborn sons. (Exodus 4:21)
Orders the Levites to kill their "every man and his neighbor" for worshipping another god. This cost 3000 lives. (Exodus 32:27)
Sends a plague to the Israelites; apparently feeling that mass-butchery wasn't enough of a punishment. (Exodus 32:35)
Kills Onan for refusing to impregnate his late brother's (whom the Christian god also slew) wife and instead "spilling his seed on the ground." (Genesis 38:8-10)
Kills the entire populations of Sodom and Gomorrah (again, including women, children and infants) for practicing certain sexual techniques.
Gives all Philistines hemorrhoids in their pubic areas. (1 Samuel 5:9)
Kills over 50,000 people for looking at an ark. (1 Samuel 6:19)
Kills 70,000 people because King David decided to have a census. (1 Chronicles 21:7-14)
Approves of slavery, and instructs owners to beat their slaves. (Proverbs 29:19)
And, finally, he makes sure that if you are guilty of even the smallest transgression, you shall suffer endlessly for all eternity, following a dramatic homecoming for Jesus, who will be extremely pissed off at everyone for putting him to death, even though it was just the Romans and even though he knew what was going to happen beforehand, and he could have easily avoided it by using his power as God to perform a miracle and prove who he was. (See the entire book of Revelation)
Satan
Satan, like Prometheus, gave knowledge to humanity by giving Eve the fruit from the forbidden tree. Because of Satan, humanity gained knowledge of good and evil, according to Genesis. Since we couldn't have possessed knowledge of good and evil before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve couldn't have known that eating the fruit was evil, so it seems a little harsh to punish them as severely as the god of the Christians did. Satan gave humans true capacity for moral judgment, unlike their god, who simply expected everyone to mindlessly obey his orders.
There is no biblical record of Satan engaging in the murder of torture of any human being, unlike the Christian god, who is guilty (and proudly guilty) of committing genocide.
There is no biblical record of Satan ever ordering someone to kill someone else, unlike their god, who has repeatedly demanded the deaths of those who commit even the smallest of offenses.
Satan will not be holding a massively dramatic ceremony full of blood and death for the return of his son to Earth. The god of the Christians apparently will.

[Conclusion]
It doesn't take a mathematician to add up and compare the Christian god and Satan's respective body counts. Their god has, after all, killed billions of people in a great flood. Satan never did anything like that. What was the only thing Satan did "wrong"? He rebelled against the god of the Christians, but wouldn't you? Look at what kind of a god he is! He needlessly murders people in nearly every book and passage of the Old Testament! He created an entire race of people for the sole purpose of catering to his own ego, and then gets mad when we don't live up to our appointed role in life or question one of his decisions! He is a ruthless, dictatorial, narcissistic, sociopathic mass murderer. If I go to Hell for not worshipping him, so much the better. I'd rather spend eternity with Satan, someone who hasn't treated the human race like disposable garbage, someone who has given knowledge to humanity rather than trying to suppress it.

It's time to stop this needless slandering of Satan's name. Satan has done nothing to deserve it. He hasn't killed anyone, publicly exonerated slavery, demanded our worship or threatened us with eternal damnation for not doing his bidding. It is the god of the Christians who is guilty of all these crimes. Satan's done nothing but rebel against a repugnantly unjust authority figure, and he gets eternal damnation and association and blame for all evil on Earth! Meanwhile, Martin Luther King, Jr. gets a holiday named after him, and Satan was far more courageous that King was. After all, Satan stood up to an all-powerful narcissist who made it clear that he never would change his mind on any issue. King at least had a democracy to work with. The Christian Smear Campaign toward Satan is completely unwarranted. Maybe, before criticizing Satan, they should look at the god they worship. Is Satan really a bad guy? Certainly not in comparison to the god of the Christians. In fact, I'd much rather have Satan running things. He just can't be worse than their god.