I was appalled after reading a letter forwarded to me from a friend titled “A letter from Satan.” Apparently, Satan had a few words for me. I have included a short introduction for your entertainment.
A LETTER TO YOU FROM SATAN
"I’d like to say “THANKS” for letting me use you for most of your foolish life.
You are so gullible, I laugh at you. When you are tempted to sin, you give in HA HA HA, you make me sick. Fool, you are mine. Remember, you and I have been going steady for years, and I still don’t love you yet and I hate you, because I hate God I am only using you to get even with God, for he kicked me out of heaven, and I’m going to use you as long as possible to get him back. You see, Fool, GOD LOVES YOU and HE has great plans in store for you. But you have yielded your life to me, and I’m going to make your life a living hell
Sin is beginning to take it’s toll on your life. We have been watching dirty movies, cursing people out, stealing, lying, being hypocritical, fornicating, overeating, telling dirty jokes, gossiping, being judgmental, back stabbing people, disrespecting adults, and those in leadership positions, no respect for the Church, bad attitudes. So go ahead and teach some children how to sin. All you have to do is smoke, get drunk or drink while under-aged, cheat, gamble, gossip, fornicate, and live being as selfish as possible.Do all of this in the presence of children and they will do it too. If you were smart, you would run somewhere, confess you sins, and live for God with what little bit of life that you have left."…………
As I continued reading these so called “words from satan” I became confused about whether I found such “giberish” comical or whether I was frusterated and dissapointed in our human species as a whole for buying into this crap. Like many religious fanatics today, I use to think of this “Scary Satan” as kind of a supernatural power, as a corruptor of good and evoker of evil, but after considerable research, I’ve come to see how important this figure has been in the history of Western culture. For “Satan” initially, was responsible for the vision of the world in which the forces of good contend against the forces of evil and this delusion still shapes our political and religious imagination today.
Where did Satan originate and what is he still doing in our tradition today? When I began to investigate this question, I discovered that images of evil spirits developed in certain Jewish sources in late antiquity (c. 300-700/800 AD), which is about 150 years before the common era (Averil). Significantly, they did not develop among groups which later took to represent Judaism, but specifically among “dissident Jews” (Jewish sectarians to followers of Jesus of Nazareth). Within decades, the figure of Satan and the image of cosmic war became central to Christian tradition and later to Muslim tradition.
Elaine Pagels (Harvard Ph.D.), a professor of religion at Princeton University (also a Theologian), laughs at the notion of “social history of Satan” which she calls a complete JOKE. How can a supernatural being have a social history? In other words, how can we characterize human beings by supernatural characters? In the first and twentieth century people invoked “Satan” to express human opposition, to characterize human enemies, and to interpret human conflict. A common expression is, “Satan is trying to take over this country, but we are resisting him.” Wow, really? What I find even more comical is the entire notion of the “Anti-Christ.” This evil being was supposedly born in 2000 (in human form) and will become Satan who will turn against God (story fed to me in my 19 years of Christian background). Once again, I ask you to consider the logic behind a human becoming a supernatural being.
Jewish storytelling introduce the supernatural Satan as “the adversary” or “the opposer.” What’s funny is that this supernatural “opposer” never dares to oppose God. In fact, he was God’s obedient angel and a member of the heavenly court (malakim, translation from Hebrew). So how does this “angel” turn into an unpleasant “evil satan” some 500 years later (today)? Jewish storytellers offered various theories. One group suggests one of the angels rebelled and was thrown out of heaven (Isaiah 14). Another story claims some of the “sons of god” fell in love with human women and had sex with them (Genesis6). The most common story is about Adam and Eve which claims that after God created Adam, he called his sibling angels to admire his work and bow down to their younger sibling, but the older sibling (Satan) disobeyed due to jealousy.
Regardless of what dogma you choose to believe it is evident that this compelling vision of God against Satan, good against evil, pervades the imagination of millions of people for over two thousand years, and has influenced the way we interpret political and social events. For example, not long ago President Ronald Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” and George Bush denounced Saddam Hussein as “the devil.” These type of “attacks against our own human race” give people the believe they are standing on God’s side by demonizing their opponents. What this religious dogmatic notion of “devil or satan” intends to do is simply add a “moral interpretation of difference.” What makes it a “dogma” is the fact that “particular groups” (Christians) latch on to their own interpretations and proclaim them as “truth” For example, The Egyptian word for human being simply means “Egyptian” and Greeks regarded everyone who did not speak Greek as obviously “barbarian”. Christians, however, latch onto their interpretation of difference as “GOOD vs EVIL”, as evident in their religions claims of “we are God’s people, and you are Satan’s people.”
But isn’t Christianity and religion intended for the sake of instilling “good” in us? For example doesn’t the passage in Mathew say 'Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father in heaven?" What I don’t understand is how " love our enemies" in some corrupted way translates into “dehumanizing our own species.” I am also confused about how “praying” renders the fact that Christianity not only invented human hostility, but also gave it a moral interpretation (proven enormously powerful). For religions denigrate people who they define as “other” and regard them as inferior and hence, “followers of Satan.”
I thus conclude that the religious ideas of " satan, evil, and darkness" is nothing more than a “dogma” and a scare-tactic used by religious proponents to keep society under control. According to history, evil was evident prior to the emergence of Christian era, which makes the notion of “Satan” an illusion. Not only did religion create it’s own fictiscious evil character, but also it’s own set of principles. The religious vision inspired people to oppose policies and practices they regarded as evil (often risking their well being and their lives) while praying for reconciliation. In other words, they first create their own interpretations of ideals, judge groups that don’t follow them, and use prayer to justify their judgments (since Judging is evil).
In conclusion, I admit to being " a selfish, sinful, non-human fool " (according to religious proponents) who takes responsibility and credit for my own actions instead of leaving it up to “God who has a plan for me” (quoted from above) I refuse to “be smart and run somewhere to confess my sins with the little life I have left” (quoted from above) and choose to live my life in accordance with logical laws of nature. I thus, need “MAJOR PRAYER” please help…
Sources Used:
Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire: Ad 284-430, Harvard University Press, 1993,
The Origin of Satan (1995), Vintage Books, 214 p.,