Satanism

Satanism is not one single religion. Satanism is a broad category of religions, worldviews, and literature all featuring a favorable interpretation of Satan. Christians (and Muslims) regard their God as all-good and Satan as evil. But what is good? What is evil? Many of the moral values espoused in the Bible seem very strange from a modern Western point of view. In the Garden of Eden story, Adam and Eve are punished for eating from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." In other words, blind obedience to the Biblical God is considered "good," whereas independent moral judgment, based on one's own knowledge, is considered "evil." But, like many other educated people in the West today, Satanists do not agree with this idea at all. In the Book of Genesis, "God" seems to be outright threatened by human knowledge and achievement, both in the Garden of Eden story ("And the LORD God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.'" - Genesis 3:22) and then later in the Tower of Babel story ("But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'" - Genesis 11:5-7).