Is Satan evil?

[EGross]

It also does Atheists no favors as Christians already somehow associate us with Satanism. It's also fairly silly biblically. Satan tortures Lot (with Gods permission) in the old testament and kills his relatives. In the new Testament Satan tries to prevent the salvation of mankind. If you accept a biblical worldview Satan is obviously the bad guy. What should be said is that the biblical worldview is totally against modern morality.

There used to be a group called the Cathars, who believed that since their god is good, and since the god of the old testament had done bad things, and since the earth is evil, then those of the old testament were not only evil, but their god was really Satan! After all, if you are not pro-christ, you are anti-christ.

While that world view didn't last, some of the baggage that came with it remained, which is that if you are not pro-christ, then you love his evil twin brother (according to Christian mythology, Lucifer was the twin brother of Jesus, and they had a falling out, and there was a Christian sect for awhile that used to pray to Jesus and Lucifer to try to get them to work things out).

Important note: if your god is really so screwed up that you need to intervene on his behalf, it's time to get a new god, or, better yet, give that psychological dependance up altogether.