The Old Testament only makes three mentions of Satan, in 1 Chronicles, Job, and one of the minor prophets (sorry, but I don’t have time to find the exact references). These are all from some of the latest books of the OT. When you look at some of the earlier passages, the ones where you would expect to find Satan, it’s God who does the temping. That’s right, God would temp you to sin and then punish you for it. Talk about an asshole move.

As ancient Judaism moved to monotheism, they began defining the attributes of God. By the Christian era this included such attributes as being morally perfect, all-loving, all powerful, and all knowing. Unfortunately those attributes don’t fit with a world where murderous dictators can slaughter millions, where you have earthquakes so strong that they shift the axis of the earth, and tsunamis that can kill tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?” – Epicurus (c. 341 – c. 270 BC)

Obviously this problem wasn’t unknown to the Mediterranean world. The way they resolved the contradiction was by the character of Satan. A malevolent powerful being.

As time went on they were able to find more uses for this character. He’s the great deceiver, the one who first rebelled against God by thinking for himself and ruined the whole universe in the process, the great tempter, the great accuser, and the one who stokes the fires of hell. Satan became the embodiment of all that is evil and vile.

In modern times, he’s still quite useful. My own departure from faith was was slowed down by Satan. I had a lot of doubt, but I figured that Satan must be trying to deceive me in hopes that he could derail me from the path that God had for me. That’s right, even when I wasn’t sure if there was a god, I was sure that if there was, then there was also a Satan. In my mind there would have been nothing worse than being tricked by the Devil. I doubted my doubt and had faith in faith, when I should have had faith in my doubt and doubted my faith.

Since then I’ve had people tell me that I’m just being deceived by Satan and even that I worship Satan. Christians took it far enough that they created a dichotomy of everything and everyone either glorifying God or glorifying Satan. With that kind of a mindset, the person calling me a devil is on the side of righteousness, and I’m a minion of the galactic super-villain.

Come on. This is just absolutely ridiculous! A cosmic super-villain?