What Christianity is Really About

Got into a debate on the nature of "Satan" earlier today.

The problem with a literal interpretation of an ancient document is that ancient storytellers found their audiences were totally okay with an explanation of a current system/problem/etc. happening "a long time ago, before any of us were around."

That sufficed for their explanations, because writing either didn't exist or hadn't been around for very long (depending on the culture you're looking at).

For us, here, now, it does NOT suffice, because as a species we have developed methods of recordkeeping which extend far beyond an individual lifespan, as well as finding evidence of events and creatures which predate our entire species.

The issue of "Satan" (a word which simply means "adversary," and is not capitalized in the oldest versions of scripture) becomes moot if you treat the "adversary" as a literary figure rather than a literal being.

Literarily speaking, "Satan" represents bestial human instinct.
To kill or be killed. Fight or flight.
Survival as one's highest achievement.

This base instinct is the adversary of higher existence (what we in our limited vocabularies call "God"), because higher existence strives to overcome simple survivalism (inherently selfish) in favor of acting in the best interest of others (inherently selfless).

Higher existence could only communicate with base instinct in small amounts, and most of the time this communication was misinterpreted by multiple peoples as favoritism of the "gods".

When different people groups with different interpretations of higher existence began to interact, base instinct caused them to fight and kill one another, believing that the other's interpretation of higher existence posed a threat to their survival.

Fast-forward a few millennia.
Higher existence, having been unable to overcome base instinct no matter how many times it revealed itself, interjects directly into our existence with a direct example of how we can each overcome our selfishness and achieve a utopia of selflessness.

As expected, many to whom it is revealed joyfully accept this new way of being.

Also as expected, those who had clung to the ancient misinterpretation rejected the direct revelation, preferring to stifle the example, and hope their barbaric action would terrify the acceptors to a degree which would prevent them from spreading the revelation.


Fast-forward a few more millennia, when humanity has moved beyond hunting/gathering, beyond simple architecture, beyond the printing press, beyond industrialization, beyond digitization.

We now have more information about ourselves and our world than ever before, yet some still hold to the ancient, literal, misinterpreted revelation of higher existence.

Thus, hypocrisy run rampant.
Thus, haughty, judgmental people guilty of the very things they condemn in others.
Thus, a world confused and infuriated by this group of people claiming to have THE TRUTH, yet showing zero signs of having achieved anything which is impossible without "their" truth.