Satan’s Ancient origins?

This is a commentary on a blog post that I found from this blog site: Satan’s Truth

Quoted from this blog:
“Satan is not and was never “evil”. Nor was Satan ever an “angel”. Satan was always a God. A God many thousands of years before the coming of Christianity, the most important God in the ancinet world. As opposed to what many people say about Satanism being a “reaction” to Christianity, and Christianity was actually a reaction to Satanism. Satanism being the original, Pagan, religion of the world.”

Hm, I see several errors with this type of thinking. Historically, Satan originated with the teachings of Judaism. As much as this person would like to believe that ‘Satan’ has been repressed, he has not. Satan is not some ancient being, he is a creation by the leaders of the religious which symbolized the potent forces of nature, and human nature, both of which Judaism and Christianity seek to dominate over instead of conceding to.

There is no Satan of the ‘ancient world’. There have been other gods who have been similar to the form and idea of Satan, but they were not Satan themselves. They were gods who belonged to other religions [Ahriman, Loki, Pan, etc], and these gods are distinctly a part of the religion from which they originate from. The name ‘Satan’ was first used in the teachings of the Talmud, as ‘ha-Satan’ a title which was a descriptive and derogatory term, describing the enemies of the armies of Israel. In other teachings, like the Life of Adam and Eve[800bc?], and the Book of Enoch [300bc?] the figure of Satan is named Shemyaza, or Samael. Shemyaza, ha-Satan, Azazel, and Samael were known as angels from their mythological legends.

Of course in the spirit of mis-information the teachings that this person from this blog refer to are anti-semetic, xenophobic and very paranoid teachings of a leader who openly plagarizes the work of other authors, and who willingly denies the actual history of humanity in favor of a fantasy created to pander to the beliefs of the easily mislead. Of course, along with this the claims of satan as a pre christain ancient deity can not be substantiated with any type of reference beyond the word of the author.

These ‘satanic’ figures did not exist outside of their original source of Judaism. They may be used today by modern Satanists but their supposed ancient and pre-Christian history is a fantasy that is best entertained by those who do not have the time and inclination to do actual research on their own religion, for themselves.

Therefore, we have the evolution and development of Satan within Judaism and Christianity which was a process that occurred over many centuries. If you would like more information on the original influence of the Christian Satan as it was developed from Judaism, feel free to read my article, “Ha Satan, the Adversarial Prototype” on my website.

The practice of worshiping Satan was only made popular in the 20th century. Prior to this there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of Satanist, excluding the church propagandist writings that have fooled people for centuries into believing that Satanists were some kind of hidden conspiracy. The belief that is held by the type of people that I am referring to in this blog post, are no different than the Wiccan idea that their religion is some kind of ancient repressed practice held back by the leaders of society. OF course it has been proven that the ‘burning times’ of which [some] witches use as a defense, were the creation of the religious upon thier own innocent people.

From the blog post, Satan’s truth: “As opposed to what many people say about Satanism being a “reaction” to Christianity, and Christianity was actually a reaction to Satanism. Satanism being the original, Pagan, religion of the world.”

Satanism is by and large a reaction to Christianity. For those who have read the satanic bible, it is easy to see how the first founder of Satanism built his church upon denying the standards of the religious. Satanism came from a time when people were seeking change, and Satanism was a movement started in the 1960’s as a reaction to what LaVey conceived as ‘hypocritical Christianity’. Satan was not worshiped as a god until this century. I do not believe that the age of a religion is a good indication of whether it qualifies as useful or not – it is the members and what they do that demonstrate this.

There is no ‘original pagan religion’. The word ‘pagan’ is Latin, and Christian and it refers to those who lived in the countryside who were less educated and who held folk beliefs despite the major conversions of Christianity in the Roman state by the third century. Prior to Christianity there was no paganism there were only polytheistic beliefs, theism and other forms of non monotheistic religions. The word ‘pagan’ has lost its meaning as being a derogatory comment into what it is known today, Neo-paganism. Neo-paganism is a reconstructionist religion, not the original practices that were done hundreds of years ago. We do not live in the third century and we are not facing a conversion of Christianity from polytheism, therefore we are not the original ‘pagans’ as they were labeled by the Christian religious right.

From the blog post, Satan’s truth: “Satan was always a God. A God many thousands of years before the coming of Christianity, the most important God in the ancient world. ”

Satan was never a god until the acceptance of Satan as a god by people of the 20th century who were interested in aligning with the force of Satan. Prior to that there is absolutely no evidence of actual Satanism, or the worship of Satan. [Excluding, once again religionists and Christian writers who wrote about Satanism and black masses to delude the public. a modern example is the satanic panic of the 90’s, claims of Satanism that were totally unfounded.] Nobody creates better fear and panic in the public than the religious right who had claimed that Satan was around every corner – this was best seen in the medieval era where people felt as if their entire life was directed by the forces of god and that Satan was the ultimate enemy.

I do not accept the fake history of Satan as created by the literature of the church. Nor am i interested in taking it upon faith that Satan is some sort of ancient god. If Satan represents nature then there is no need to label him as a god and to personify the forces of nature, they are what they are. For people to believe that all forces of ‘darkness’ that were ever worshiped represent Satan, they should also consider that every non dark force would also represent the forces of god. The labeling of all other gods of the past as one god is an attribute of monotheistic beliefs, and it is an element of religion, something which I oppose upon its principles of the promotion of fallacious belief.

Note: an etymological look at the origns of the word, pagan.
c.1375, from L.L. paganus “pagan,” in classical L. “villager, rustic, civilian,” from pagus “rural district,” originally “district limited by markers,” .. likely derived from the use of paganus in Roman military jargon for “civilian, incompetent soldier,” which Christians (Tertullian, c.202; Augustine) picked up with the military imagery of the early Church (e.g. “soldier of Christ,” etc.).

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