Having been raised agnostic, I first realized I was a Satanist when I was a young pup in grade school. The first time I ever met anybody who called themselves a Christian and who was publicly outspoken about it was in sixth grade. This was a fellow student who was trying to get me to convert to his beliefs. He, his parents and their friends all tried to push their point of view on me, but for the life of me monotheism has just never made much sense. It has always made more sense to me to assume that there are many possible gods out there, seeing how so many different people in the world have claimed to have so many different spiritual experiences. The fact that you believe in divinity does not mean you believe in the same divinity as everyone else, and the fact that there are so many different ideas of divinity and none can be proven shows that one person’s religion is just as good as another. I have always felt more comfortable assuming that there may very well be some truth behind the spiritual experiences of others, and that I have no right to tell anyone that what they experience isn’t real (unless it can be somehow proven that they are just delusional).

So as far as I am concerned, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, the Norse gods, the ancient Egyptian gods and even L. Ron Hubbard are all real in some way. However, this does not mean that I agree with their respective worshipers as to what they are. Christians experience their Lord as a loving god who redeems them from their sins. Well I’m not sure about the redemption part, but I feel it is pretty safe to say that if a person feels love coming from their god, then I have no reason to assume that it isn’t true. We aren’t living in a comic book universe, after all; nothing in existence is truly, purely “Evil” in and of itself. However, I think the claim that Jehovah is the Lord of the entire Universe is quite an unreasonable one, as I see no reason to believe that the Creator of All Things would have any interest in wasting Its time revealing itself through the Bible, when It is constantly revealing Itself through Nature all the time. And the picture we get of the Creator from the impersonal ferocity of Nature is not at all benevolent in any humanly-meaningful sense, but more ambivalent at best. I would go so far as to theorize that perhaps the Creator is not even sentient.

No, I agree with Christians that theirs is a loving god, but I don’t see any logical reason (a la Thomas Paine) to believe that he is the one that rules the universe, or that he was even remotely responsible for my existence. It is also clear to me that their god, although loving, is certainly not “all-loving.” Obviously, even the Bible itself describes their god as being quite jealous and wrathful at times. I figure everybody must have their bad days, and not even Mr. J is a perfect, uncreated being.

If Jehovah the “god of love” is capable of wrath, what then does this say about his eternal arch-nemesis, Lucifer? Christians are always describing Lucifer as this absolutely evil cosmic rebel who wants to hurt Jehovah by working for humankind’s spiritual destruction. But many people who worship Lucifer say that they experience love from Him, quite like how Christians will say they experience love from Jehovah. Christians will say that Satanists are just being deceived by Lucifer to think that He loves them, and that He really only wants to destroy them in the end; but how do they know this is really true? What gives them the authority to judge the mind and will of the Prince of Darkness? The Bible gives them no such authority, for it is written from the perspective of Jehovah and his followers, not from Lucifer’s perspective. Reading the Bible gives you a terrific idea of Jehovah’s perception about Lucifer, but it does not represent what Lucifer really believes and stands for at all.

Of course Christians will see Lucifer as the “Evil One,” because He is the opposite of their god. But being the opposite of something does not necessarily mean you are “Evil.” Darkness is the opposite of Light, but there is nothing inherently evil about Darkness in and of itself. In fact, it can even have positive qualities: when things are dark, you want to go to sleep and your body begins building energy for the next day. When you are in the dark you can hide from danger. When you look upward into the nighttime sky, you can see all the things beyond our atmosphere that the sun won’t let you see during the day.

Just as Darkness has its positive qualities, Light can also have its negative qualities. Light can help us to see, but it can also blind us. It can keep us warm, but it can also burn and scorch us. There are dualities in all things that exist. Nothing is completely positive or negative in and of itself. We do not live in a universe that lies between an eternal conflict between “Good” and “Evil.” We live in a universe composed of varying shades of gray, in which “Good” and “Evil” must be determined by each individual entity for itself. This was Lucifer’s entire point in tempting Eve with that blessed Fruit. Sure, He wanted her to disobey Jehovah, and it is for this reason that Christians will scapegoat Him as the Father of all Sin. But the path to spiritual truth lies not in simply accepting whatever prepackaged system we are given; rather, we must continually question and challenge the things we believe in. We must put our beliefs to the test and find what works the best for us, while we are under the most pressure. Faith is an essential ingredient in any form of spirituality, but doubt does not have to be its enemy. The path of Lucifer involves the understanding that we live in a mysterious world, and that there is far more to reality than can ever be expressed in a single book -- even one as large as the Bible.

What makes a religion like Christianity work is that it gives its followers what some Luciferians will call “the illusion of certainty.” That is, it outlines a view of reality, the world and the supernatural that is considered to be “certain,” and Christians are encouraged to think of their belief systems in such terms. Hence why so many people in the Christian persuasion are convinced that theirs is the “Only True Way” while all other “ways” are false at best and damnable at worst. While they are certainly entitled to such a view, I consider it much more reasonable to assume that very little is actually certain as far as spiritual matters go; we are surrounded by the Unknown on all sides. Christians choose to accept the Bible as a revelation of the “Truth” communicated to them by their god, whom they believe is the Creator of all. A Satanist chooses to look at any and all revelations, even those outside the Bible, as objectively as possible and to make their own personal judgments concerning the various deities that are believed to make such communications. A Satanist does this with the understanding that things are not always what they seem, and folks aren’t always who they claim to be.

There is no single Satanic text that is recognized by all Satanists everywhere as a “true revelation of Satan.” There have been Satanic texts, to be true -- the Yezidi Mishaf Resh, The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, The Diabolicon and The Book of Coming Forth by Night by Michael Aquino -- but not all Satanists agree as to which of these are truly inspired by Satan, or if any of them are inspired by Him at all. Or perhaps they all were, but their meanings are meant to be evaluated in context with each other. Who knows? In Satanism, there is no rule anywhere that says we have to put our faith in a single text. Satanists are allowed to wipe their bums with The Satanic Bible if they feel they disagree with it. In a religion which celebrates the Ultimate Rebel, this is only natural. Here, we value our own spiritual experiences and revelations over those of any other. I find what I believe Lucifer has communicated to me to be more valid than whatever Jehovah might have said to Moses back in the Old Testament days.

Once again, Christians will tell me I am being deceived. My question is, “How are you so sure YOU’RE not being deceived?” And of course I am always given quotes from the Bible for answers, and none of these quotes proves anything to me. All it does is make my point all the more clear: no matter how many Bible quotes you can muster, all you have is your faith when it comes right down to it. And if it makes you comfortable to put your faith in the Bible, then all the more power to you. But me personally, I would rather put my faith in the spiritual experiences that I have had for myself ever since I was a young pup, and these experiences tell me that Lucifer ain’t half bad at all.