Satan gets a pretty bad rap, although there's a pretty compelling argument that he deserves it. Originally the most-loved of all of God's creations, his fall from grace, his rebellion against God and banishment to Hell is among humanity's greatest archetypal stories, most brilliantly recounted in the epic Paradise Lost. Interestingly, despite being the antagonist of the poem, Satan is a somewhat sympathetic character. Sure, he's arrogant, hostile and self-pitying, but he's also extremely eloquent, independent and paradoxically optimistic, declaring that "It is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." He's very human.
Last semester, me and a large group of students were having a shouting argument with the fundamentalist Christian who hangs around on campus standing on a ladder playing guitar and reading Scripture, and ended up sitting down and talking with a real, no-foolin' Satanist. Not LaVeyan Satanism or First Church of Satan or any of the ridiculous Goth "Dark Mass" ritualistic pretend Satanism, all of which are really just atheism, hedonism and, as this guy put it, "borderline retardation with a pentagram on it." He worshipped Satan because he truly believed that the popular conception of Satan is the result of a deliberate propaganda campaign on the part of Yahweh. Through constant repetition and the threat of damnation, God has the world convinced that He is infallible and all-powerful, and uses that power to force us to do his bidding, shoving all the blame for the world's ills onto a convenient scapegoat. For him, Satan is the freedom fighter, the rebel who wanted to break God's tyrannical hold over all of us and was exiled for daring to assert his independence. He's the Trotsky to God's Stalin.
It's an interesting thought. One of the consistent features of totalitarianism is the reverence of a God-like Leader, infinitely wise but stern. I had never considered that the comparison could go the other way.
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