Brothers,

As Satanists, we of course revel in the depravity, perversion, and debauchery that are our reward for embracing Satan. However, sometimes it can be a challenge for us to shake off the years or even decades of Abrahamic indoctrination. I intend to deconstruct and critique some of the presuppositions that can create baggage that many of us may still have.

I will begin with the account of the Garden of Eden.

I think we can all agree that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as religions are pernicious lies and slander. However, their texts may still contain some elements of truth of use to us, or provide us the means to deconstruct the Abrahamists’ foundations.

The book of Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve are settled in the garden, there is a tree of good and evil from which they are told not to eat lest they die. Eve is tempted by the serpent and eats the fruit, and convinces Adam to do so as well. This results in the expulsion from Eden. We all know the story.

Plenty of people have debated elements of the minutiae of the story (ie what was the fruit? Was it sex? Did snakes have legs before this) but none of those matter for our purposes. Generally speaking, the doctrinal analysis of this passage focuses on the faults of Adam and Eve, and to a lesser extent on the serpent as a tempter (usually seen as Satan or a mouthpiece though He is never mentioned by name). Rarely does the critique turn to Yahweh and his actions.

What can we as Satanists learn from this passage? Other than, perhaps, don’t listen to women?

I will first focus on what the passage reveals about Yahweh and what sort of god he really is. The passage tells us that Yahweh places the forbidden tree in the very center of the garden and gives a threat that eating of the tree will cause death.

The simplest critique here is that if he did not want Adam and Eve to eat of the tree, he would not have placed it where it was. Abrahamists will argue that it was placed there as a test. This fails on several corollary premises. If Yahweh is omniscient as they claim, the test would be pointless because he would know the outcome before he sets the test, and Adam and Eve are blameless.

Or, as a matter of practical example, imagine a parent who leaves an open box of cookies with a child but tells the child not to eat them and proceeds to leave the child unsupervised. Is it a realistic expectation that the child will not eat the cookies? Of course not. When the child eats the cookies, the parent is to blame, not the child. The same standard applies to Yahweh’s treatment of Adam and Eve. A parent punishing a child for their own actions is abuse, and that is what Yahweh is, a theme that is actually repeated throughout the Abrahamic texts and the religions they spawned.

But this goes beyond the mere question of whether or not they could eat the special fruit. The fruit in question is of the knowledge of good and evil. I think we can all agree that the outcome of a lack of knowledge is ignorance. Ignorance, not only of basic concepts like good and evil, but even of their own natures as we are told that Adam and Eve were not aware of their nakedness. It is clear that Yahweh desired to keep humanity in a state of ignorance, and very probably of stasis and stagnation.

Enter the serpent. Abrahamists have cast the serpent as the villain, as they would. But look carefully at how the serpent is depicted in the text:

“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The serpent is said to be “cunning”, which is synonymous with “smart, keen, knowing.” The serpent’s question to Eve is not about deception. He is prompting her to engage in critical thinking. It is crucial to note that when the serpent tells her that she will be like god, he is not lying. He has told her the truth, and has told her more than Yahweh told Adam.

We know that the serpent told the truth because the Abrahamists’ own scripture tells us that he did. Adam and Eve did gain knowledge, and they did become like Yahweh. They did not die on that very day, but lived on for many years after the expulsion. The Bible itself in its foundational myth presents its god as an irresponsible and dishonest figure and the serpent as the one who tells the truth.

We have already discussed Yahweh’s treatment of Adam and Eve as abusive, but I do want to raise the question as to whether or not mortality, at least physical mortality, was actually a punishment.

I propose that the only punishment that was in Yahweh’s ability was to expel them from Eden. Mortality was not a punishment, but a natural consequence of eating the fruit, ie gaining knowledge and therefore self-actuation. In their previous state, Adam and Eve may well have remained undying, but perpetually stuck in a frozen state, fully ignorant of the world and themselves. Though mortality was now their lot, they now had the ability to grow, to change, and to decide things for themselves. It was Yahweh’s hissy fit and tantrum that led to the hardship of human life.

The serpent is no villain here, he is in fact the hero, the liberator who freed Adam and Eve from their shackles. Yahweh is a manipulative, abusive liar.

Hail Satan! Liberator!

Hail Satan! Giver of knowledge!

Hail Satan! Lightbringer!

Fuck the Father! Hail Satan!

Fuck the Son! Hail Satan!

Fuck the Holy Spirit! Hail Satan!

Fuck Moses! Hail Satan!

Fuck the Whore Mary! Hail Satan!

Fuck Muhammad! Hail Satan!